Friday, June 13, 2014

A Sketchbook in Search of Sketches

It's the small things that often bring such great satisfaction. This afternoon I followed a You Tube Video titled " The No Sew Handmade Book."

Everything initially went well. I folded when shown where to fold. After each set of instructions I stopped the video and made my fold. Then the time came for the cuts.

I went down to the basement and found my twenty-four inch metal ruler,a cutting board, and a sharp rotary blade cutter.

Then I did all the cutting--precisely, carefully, and with determination. Despite all this care one cut went in the wrong direction. Rather than a proper sketchbook, mine turned out lopsided and impossible to turn from page to page.

So I started all over with the folds and then the cutting. This time I knew what had happened and with trepidation I made my cuts. I folded the paper back and forth until a book emerged. Creating a cover was the easy part. I stamped the words Sketchbook Crawl on the cover and set the sketchbook under two heavy tomes.

In the next two days I'll write my name inside and do a watercolor sketch. Then the sketchbook will go into an envelope and be mailed out. In ten months it will come back to me-- after traveling across the states and several foreign countries. The artwork of nine "artists" will fill the pages.

It's akin to having nine pen pals. Remember a time when you had pen pals? 'Tis exhilarating.

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