Description

In this workshop we will create personal books using natural pigments & inks to make the pages come alive. These are working books intended for specific purposes, tools for grounding and recording our lives.

What happens when the forest is imbued into the ink you write with? What magic happens when a book is bound with birdsong and wave? A handmade book can be a sacred space. Writing, drawing, or dreaming onto the pages bound with intention is a pleasure.

Journals, studio formula notes, poetry, health journeys, naturalist observations, garden planners, sketchbooks, recipe records, family interviews, canning journals that keep track of preserves and pickles from year to year… the purposes to which we can put a thoughtfully made hand made book are nearly endless.

Books will be sewn using ancient coptic style binding which opens flat, and makes them easy to write in. We will discuss the natural pigments in the provided inks and paints, and students will learn several useful bookbinding skills: from making book cloth, to creating traditional paste papers, and folding octavo signatures.

Instructor will provide a selection of naturally dyed fabrics for cover materials, and hand dyed linen for sewing books.