Friday 29 September 2017

The Bookmarks XV Project

I participated in the 15th and final year of the Bookmarks Infiltrating the Library System project organised by the Centre for Book Arts at the University of the West of England in Bristol.  Over 50 artists took part and I have now received my contributor's set.  In addition, a number of sets will be sent out to institutions in Germany, New Zealand, Sweden, USA as well as the UK.

Details of the scheme and the various contributors over the years can be found here, with this year's bookmarks itemised on this page.

I started planning my contribution in October 2016 and worked on it in between other tasks.  I finally sent off my 100 bookmarks to the University in March this year.

I used full sheets of hot-pressed 140lb Bockingford watercolour paper, acrylic paint, inks and gesso. For each new full sheet I used a different set of colours to randomly paint and stamp an abstract  background.  These were subsequently hand printed with a linocut of a flower in white (a mixture of gesso and slow drying acrylic), plus a collage element designed to clip over a book page.  I couldn't resist a bit of "bling" and highlighted the flower petals with pen and gold acrylic ink before hand cutting, assembling and numbering the final bookmarks.

Deciding to produce each individual bookmark by hand involved a fair amount of work, but I enjoyed the challenge.




 Softcut printing blocks


To help line up the printing, I cut the large sheets into strips
 just a fraction over the height of the main lino block


100 bookmarks

Detail






1 comment:

  1. well Sonia, I HAVE got one of your bookmarks...........and thank you..........I HAD SO MUCH trouble making my edition of bookmarks. I had originally signed up to do the project in 2006 but had to cancel due to spinal surgery. I decided I was going to participate in this project eventually and hence participated in this the final Bookmarks Project. I have some photos and bits and pieces somewhere so will eventually get round to doing a post. Lovely to hear what you have been getting up to.

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