Book Print

Three colour ways - fluro pink, gold and blue all with a purple outline

This book pattern print came about because I wanted to make some nice bags to give out with purchases at Manchester's Artsists' Book Fair.  Turns out it's actually quite versatile!

 Various colours and sizes of bags

 I stuck to one colour with the tote bags and aside from trying to print it in lime green, am really chuffed with how they've come out.  The more I print the more I learn!

 Drying in the rack and being folded into books

I've printed this amazing folding style book before (back in uni, see the background of the blog, and in this post here) and I've often felt that people buy it a lot for the fun of the fold!  I've been selling them rather cheap for the amount of design work and concentration that goes into them - just £5!  So, as I'm coming to an end of my stock of the current book I've given this fold a re-vamp for those who are interested in the fold, and perhaps print, but weren't too keen on the illustrations.  For £5 you can now grab one of these beauties!  In either 2 or 3 colours, an edition of 30 books with the book print on them are now available - hurrah!

I had a few off cuts and hate to see paper go to waste so I'll be popping these book marks into people's bags when they purchase something at book fairs and craft markets.


Keep an eye out for this pattern popping up on other items as well :)

Book Fair coming up in October!

The Eighth Manchester Artists' Book Fair

My table at last years fair.

HURRAH it's back again!

The Manchester Artists' Book Fair happens every year and this is my 3rd year exhibiting - I'm excited to be going back!

Read about previous years here:

2011

2012

The Hot Bed Press - a printmakers studio in Salford - organise and put on a great 2 days of Artists' Books.  The Holden Gallery is full of creative loveliness spread over each Artists' table.  It's lovely to see everyones different take on the 'Artist Book', meet new people, catch up with customers and friends and enjoy little bits of Manchester for the weekend.

2013 will be held at The Holden Gallery on the 18th and 19th October - come say hi!

Have a browse on the website and keep an eye out for updates on Twitter - find me @charlsvallance.

www.manchesterartistsbookfair.com

BABE - Bristol Artist Book Event 2013

BABE - The Bristol Artists' Book Event - happens every two years and I am so pleased to be a part of it!  It's always a great weekend full of inspiring people and work.  It's a great excuse to meet up with friends in the area as well as catching up with book art people from around the country!

My next door neighbour at BABE for the weekend was the lovely Kate Bufton of 'Book Transformations'.  Her table was a wonderland of books, folds, little stories, and great pieces.

This amazingly bright and cheery table is Karoline Rerrie's.  It was lovely seeing some of her new pieces up close after having seen them online.  And of course having a good chat!

My neighbour from the last book fair in Manchester last year (read about here) is the awesome Sarah Bryant of 'Big Jump Press'.  Back in October Sarah had gorgeous books and prints on display.  This year, she's added to it with awesome postcards and notebooks...of which I picked up a couple - great for little gifts or having in your hand bag for that 'note to self'!

Coffee Club Collective is a great group of illustrators who have just published their first litho printed 1000 books full of illustrations to do with the circus.  I got my copy and I love it!

Were you there too?  Get in touch and maybe we'll be neighbours at the next BABE!

The 7th Manchester Artist Book Fair

What a great weekend!

This year Hot Bed Press managed to secure us two days in the lovely Holden Gallery, within the Manchester School of Art.  This meant that on Friday we saw lots of students and Saturday bought in people having a browse - I even recognised a few faces from last year!

I was honoured with one of the first tables as you walk in the room - can you believe it?!  Myself and Sarah, of Big Jump Press had our tables set up to welcome people in through the doors and to bid them a good journey on their way out too.

Over the two days I did manage to leave my table for long enough to enjoy a look around everyone else's tables, however, I only got photos of mine and Sarah's! Oops.

I had two new releases for this fair, my 'Down Your Street : York' screen printed book and my 'Lucky Dip' bags.  Both went down great and I had some awesome feedback.  I love hearing what people have to say about my work, it's even more fun when people are really not holding back.  I was lucky enough to hear my table be described as an 'Illustration Wonderland' - how gorgeous does that sound!? As well as '...and shit that's amazing!'  I also managed to get stocked up with more lovely stripy paper bags for future fairs in return for an Amsterdam card.

You can find a list of all the contributors here, be sure to check them out, some really stunning works.

p.s. everything on my table is available to buy and will be found in my shop here.  If it's not in the shop, send me a message and I can do a custom listing specially for you at no extra cost.


You'll find posts about the 7th Manchester Artists Book Fair on many other blogs, but after this one, you can have a look at Fishink's blog fishinkblog.wordpress.com :-D be sure to let us know if you got here from the other!

Workshop at The Royal Masonic School for Girls

All forms of Book

I was contacted by RMS's textile teacher Mrs Bloomfield Proud, to come into the school and do a workshop for the girls working on a Children's Book project.  They have to take a cultural, traditional, children's story and interpret it how they will and produce a textile piece.  After seeing the work I've done which involve books, she was inspired to get me to inspire the girls!  

I took along examples of my work, in all different book forms to talk through with them.  As a bonus, I took along the children's book that I developed in my 2nd year at University as well as some of my favourite children's books that i have for *ahem, research and reference.

I demonstrated how to make a couple of books that involve only folds and cuts rather than stitching (as this is the option I normally go for myself) but also showed them a bit of stab binding as it's a good bind to know if you have numerous loose pages to put together and is relatively straight forward.

Hopefully the girls came out of it a bit more knowledgable and full of inspiration and ideas on how to possibly incorporate their current ideas into a book format.

A little something for you!

Hello All!

So since joining Twitter, Facebook and having a Blog, I have entered a fair few competitions, met loads of people (some in real life as well!), enjoyed supporting other illustrators and artists, and I am so grateful for the support that you also give me.

As a little thank you, and as it is the season for giving...for a lucky participant I shall put together a little package of goodies for you to get through the post.  If you have any special requirements then you can let me know but ultimately it will be a surprise!  And yes, I shall post to ANYWHERE!

In order to be chosen you need to leave a comment on this blog post, or tweet to me ( @charlsvallance ) which of the following books is your favourite, and tell me why, as well as why you would like to win!  I shall choose the winner the old fashioned way by putting everyones names in a hat and selecting one :-)

Row of Houses

Wake up and Smell the Coffee

(Delft) Blue

Birds, Boats & Buildings

(THE AMAZING FOLDING BOOK!)

Buildings

Statues of Europe

You have until Sunday 18th December 12noon :-)

Thank you everyone!

X

(Delft) Blue

My Aunt suggested that i get in touch with some friends of hers who frequent the Artists Book Fair scene when I saw her before the summer, as for the (then) upcoming London Fair at The Whitechapel Gallery they had a table and a theme of 'blue' that they were inviting other artists to participate in.

I thought, why not?  And got in touch with Sophie Loss, who was lovely and said they would be pleased to have my work on their table.  The group is known as AMBruno and consist of a group of friends who all have film influences and beautiful books!

I took the theme of 'blue and came up with '(Delft) Blue'.  I seem to be spending a lot of time recently in Amsterdam, due to my boyfriend living there, and to be honest I'm not complaining!  It's a lovely city, and we always have fun when we go out, whether its with friends for drinks or during the day to galleries and sight seeing.  I have wanted to illustrate Amsterdam for a while, for those very reasons, and decided that for 'blue' I could happily illustrate in my fine line style but use a blue pen rather than my usual black.  I then felt that maybe I should give the blue more depth, and I thought of watercolours (see above image - this was also used in the leaflet AMBruno put together for the table), but then the opportunity to silk screen came my way and I thought that the 'blue' book could be done this way with shades of blues.

Now, I haven't silk screened since university.  Thats a good 2 years.  Neither had Charlie - the girl I was going to be silk screening with.  Between the two of us we figured it out and were so happy with the results!  Now for some photos showing the process from sketch to finished lovely book.

'(Delft) Blue', along with 12 other 'blue' themed books are on show/exhibition/for sale at the London Art Book Fair THIS weekend Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th September at The Whitechapel Gallery. If you can get there, I would recommend it.  The preview night last night was packed, and I have heard only good things from fellow Artists Book-er Louise Atkinson about the fair today.

Deciding on a layout, type of fold (inspired by Rachel Hazell)

Making the bike badges that will be tucked in the hidden pocket of the book.  I used 'shrinkles' a lot of work as I had thought I could print from the computer onto the sheets, but I couldn't so each is lovingly hand drawn!

 The negatives for the screen on top on one another.  I had 2 colours, therefore 2 negatives.  I quite like how they look in black and grey.

First colour, peacock blue, fills mostly brick work on the buildings, some windows but no outline.

Second colour, navy blue, fills mostly outline detail as well as some brickwork, shutters and windows.

Prints everywhere!

 The lovely, little origami boats that I made out of copies of a vintage map of Amsterdam.  These also come tucked in the secret pocket of the book.

Finally the front cover, I kept it simple with only text and no imagery.

All in all, I'm really pleased with how this little book turned out.  Folded it measures just under A6, and unfolded it concertinas out to be nearly as long an A3 width.

*PROPER PHOTOS OF FINISHED BOOK ON MY FACEBOOK PAGE*

Sewn Structures book binding workshop with Rachel Hazell

As part of my holiday I got in contact with the lovely Rachel Hazell of Hazell Design's books and organised for myself and my sisters to do a workshop with her.  I've been a fan of Rachel's books since I was at University and was first introduced to book arts.  Her books are just gorgeous, I wanted to take home one of each that she on display, but i finally got myself down to just one.  A little notebook with 'Do what you love' in type on the front and a little map picture on the back.  Made with lush paper, its going to be a while before I make use of this little book for fear of going wrong!  I am also the happy owner of a mug and a cute little bag with Rachel's designs on them - mementos of my trip.

We started off with simple books that involved no sewing or glue, and could be created out of one piece of paper.  We used A4 but any size will work as long as folded correctly!  These are such inspiring little books, and Rachel's little stories of previous projects, the directions people have taken their books and her own ideas really brought the books to life.

There was a good old elevenses tea break, lunch and an afternoon tea break as well - I could of continued all day!

We made a simple 4 page book with a cover and just 3 stitches.  We used a lovely old page of sheet music for our cover.  2 pages folded and slotted in together is known as putting them in a nest. Cute.

The next batch of books involved more coordination and a bit of sewing.  We were taught the box fold (I forget its exact name - should of taken more notes!) but basically a fold for a cover that means there is a little box around the spine edges, making a nice flat surface to stitch/bind on.

The first bind looked like there were little pearls along the spine, really cute, with room to expand on this idea with thinner thread and actual little pearls.

The second was a chain stitch bind, which looked just like a chain.

The third, linked kisses.  Rather than your plain cross stitch look these kisses were made up of two bits of thread linking through each other.

The forth, the ladder stitch, funnily enough looked like a ladder!

The fifth, we went back to the 3 stitch music book, but gave it 3 nests.  This was an exercise to show us how we can easily add more nests into any book.

Because we were pretty fast, well behaved book binding apprentices we got to make a sixth book!  A bit of leeway and we could make it look how we wished with dots and dashes.

My memory of book binding is so refreshed now!  A great day, course and experience all round.  Even got to see  Edinburgh for the rest of the lovely sunny weekend and enjoy time with my sisters.

Thank you Rachel!