The Clock Book
Sunday, August 28th, 2005
This is the front cover. I started out with an abridged (but still more than 2″ thick) copy of The Count of Monte Cristo that I bought new, because I wanted something sturdy. I found that wonderful, heavy, wrinkly gold paper and glued it over the binding, then covered everything else with this paint-ish stuff that dries into a handmade-paper-like surface. The stuff is nasty to work with–slimy and tough to manuever–but the overall effect is great. Very glad I found it. While it was still damp, I stamped the clock into it with gold ink. I wanted to try to keep the cover fairly simple since the inside was a little more ornate. This isn’t the greatest picture, either, what with the flash glare and all.
The inside. I glued all the pages together into one huge block with gel medium and used a utility knife to cut out the boxes, then painted everything, wrote and rewrote the calligraphy (no kidding, probably five or six times–and I’m still not entirely satisfied with it), painted some more, added the gold corners and the fibers. The whole thing took a really long time, a lot of agonizing about supplies (especially those $%&# gold corners), and a lot more money than I either anticipated or wanted to spend. The problem is, I’ve never done a mixed media project like this before, so I didn’t have anything lying around leftover from other things. The outside edges of the page block are painted pale, somewhat shimmery gold, which helps disguise the layers and layers of gel medium. The fibers were a later addition, but I think they really help pull it together. I’m still not entirely satisfied with the way the quote (written seperately on watercolor paper and glued in) transitions into the rest of the book. Perhaps I didn’t tint the paper heavily enough. Not sure if I’ll try and fix that or not.
This is a close-up of the clock part. I should probably add that this isn’t completely finished yet–the clock still doesn’t work. I think I lost a nut or something that it needs, but since I was about to leave for college, I wanted to at least make it look done so I could take a picture of it. Next time I’m home I’ll stick a battery in it and see if it works despite the missing piece; it might. When I glued the block of pages together, I didn’t glue them to the back cover, so it opens to allow access to the motor to change the battery and adjust the time. Also, now that I look at it more closely, I feel as though that part of the page is missing something, too.
Perhaps this is just because I’ve spent so much time planning and making this book, but it feels somehow flat to me. I don’t think it matches the “inner vision” as closely as I’m accustomed to my artwork doing. No doubt I’m being too hard on myself, since this is an unfamiliar style and collection of media, but I feel like there’s something lacking. It feels unfinished and imperfect to me. It’s probably just me, but I don’t really have any way of telling that. Maybe sometime I’ll take it to my art teacher and ask her to help me figure it out. She’s good with stuff like that and I think this book would be very much her “style” so she could probably come up with some good insights. I just don’t know.
