More book love

I meant to post a couple days ago, but as soon as I started typing about how I should be cleaning the kitchen instead of blogging, I started to feel guilty, because really, I had just cooked a really involved dinner and the kitchen did need cleaning a lot more than my blog needed posting on... so to make a long story short (or a short story shorter), I spent the next 2 hours cleaning the kitchen, neglecting my blog. That's okay, though, because if I'd posted back then, I wouldn't have been able to post this:

This is my most recent book, done using a flat binding. It was a bit a lot more complicated than the coptic binding, but also really cool because it comes out looking like a real book! I decided to use fabric instead of paper for the cover, and I really love the feel it gives to the book. This fabric was chosen with some... difficulty, since I invited Chris to go to the fabric store with me to "help," and we both discovered that our tastes in fabric are often somewhat different. Incidentally, Chris and I have also vowed never to go to a fabric store together again. These two incidents may or may not be related. We both liked this fabric, though.

This book involved a lot of nit-picky details, including lining up cover boards exactly straight and parallel, sewing together signatures exactly on top of each other, and sewing headbands to the exact thickness of the textblock (yep! I sewed that endband!). I still loved it, though, and apparently I did a pretty good job. When my teacher handed my book back today, she told me that she'd never had a student hand in this type of book with such perfect craftmanship on their first try. And she gave me 100%. Wow. Apparently my book was so well made, she didn't even notice that I accidentally used only one page instead of two at the beginning and end of the book, leaving the stitching visible right by the book cover instead of stuck between pages. But oh well.

I figure I might as well post one of my head paintings, too. This one is a little more finished than they usually are, since it was done out of class. It's not great, but it's improvement. Maybe someday I'll show you my first painting, and this painting will seem like Rembrandt in comparison.

I might post today's painting someday, too. It was pretty good, aside from the fact that she was pretty much red like a tomato. Seriously, you basically have to paint in the dark in that classroom since they don't want to mess with the lights shining on the models, so you'll be happily painting along for 3 hours, and then they turn on the lights and BAM! RED!

I'll end with this awesome video that the HBLL (BYU's library) put together that recently went viral on YouTube. Seriously, almost one and a half million views! It's a parody of an Old Spice commercial--you can watch the original for context, if you want.

Bookbinding = love

Yeah, it's been kind of awhile since I posted, and this one won't be long.  I just really liked this book that I made in bookbinding, and figured I'd post it (you can pretend that I took the time to set up a nice background for the photo).  It's an old style of bookbinding called coptic stitch binding that doesn't have a spine--you stitch together a bunch of little booklets called signatures.  Also, I decorated the paper that I used for the book cover using walnut ink, watercolors, rubbing alcohol, and salt.  It was so much fun!  This is definitely my favorite class this term, though my other classes aren't too bad.  I'm also in figure drawing, which I'm enjoying a lot more now that I'm actually starting to be semi-talented at it, and head painting, which is... an experience.  The class goes from Monday through Thursday for 3 hours a day, and you pretty much just come in and paint a new painting every day.  The basic theory behind the class seems to be that if you paint the human head enough, you'll eventually start doing something right.  I guess it works, because I've definitely improved since my first painting (which I may never show to a living soul ever), but out of about 10 or 11 paintings, I've still only produced about 3 that I would ever admit that I painted.  This class has definitely been good for me, though--painting people has become a lot less intimidating.  I may even post something I paint someday--who knows??

In other news, I recently turned 21, and partied it up at... um... Brick Oven Pizza.  But there was apple beer involved!  Non-alcoholic, of course, but it still has the word "beer", which makes it legit.  We also went to see Toy Story 3, which I highly recommend to anybody who's still missing out on it.  For my birthday, I got clothes, jewelry, money for a new keyboard, and a Vienna Teng piano book from Chris that I'm sure he's regretted getting me a million times by now, since he just doesn't like Vienna Teng as much as I do.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that she's practically the only artist I ever listen to these days.  Poor guy, just can't handle hearing the same songs a hundred times in a week like I can.  I wonder what's wrong with him.