Preparing for the Artist's Book Fair

Oops! Forgot to give you the update yesterday - here's today's situation report...

The books:

  • Cloud Sonnets - ready and bagged
  • Hearts on the Night Bus - printed, trimmed and bound - ready and bagged
    • need to be covered
    • titles and illustrations to be added
  • Things that last a heartbeat or a lifetime
    • need assembling
  • Journals
    • need covers
  • Underground photo book
    • in development, may come together for the show, or not

Stuff for the day:

  • moo cards - ordered, dispatched, but not here yet (fretting) - STILL NOT HERE!
  • book info sheets (to be tucked into bags)
  • price labels and price lists
  • receipts
  • guest book/box for cards
  • table cloth & emergency kit
  • name tag and sign for table

Any tips? From those of you who've had stalls at art fairs, or those who've been to fairs and had good or bad experiences with exhibitioners, all pointers welcome!

Read More

A flurry of bookmaking

By the time I got home on Wednesday I was desperate for my bed. It took hours to get warm and I was aches and pains in every part of my body with bones. I'd been feeling like this since Sunday, but hadn't really listened to my body, just shrugged it off and carried on. So Wednesday afternoon and Thursday I stayed in my bed. I feel better now, although I need to take it easy, and follow my energy flows.

At least I had plenty to read. I'm due a library trip, so the shelves are dry at home. The bookstore I passed on my way home on Wednesday had a 3 for 2 offer. So I picked up and set down books as is my usual pattern. If I know exactly what I want, I search for it on Bookmooch, and if I really really want it I try Amazon. In a bookstore, it is much more intuitive. This time it was spookily intuitive - I ended up with 3 books written in the 1st person, where the narrator kills someone. How weird is that?

So now I am busy finishing off the books for my book sale on Friday and Saturday. If you are in London on either of those days, do pop by and see. It's the Small Publishers' Book Fair, and I loved it last year. Prices range from £3 on up, and there are all kinds of books, you can't even imagine - and I know how imaginative you are, but still, you can't. You'll find me at the Everyday Joy table. The leaflet for the fair has more

information in pdf form

.

Read More

I was drawing today

Lomo028  
 Lomo029

From Michelangelo's Heroic Captive and Battle of the Centaurs.

In my drawing class, we have been focusing on using blocks of light and dark to build the shape of our subject. We've used charcoal and pastel, but today we were using one of my favourite tools - the gel pen. Using pens of different thicknesses, and again working from an upside down picture to battle our preconceptions, we tried to build up the tone using parallel lines, curved and straight, and cross-hatching.

Read More