"I do it because I want to protect him from the world, and sometimes from myself. I want to tell him every secret I ever had, and yet I never want to make him choose, to see the hurt in his eyes, to put this, too, on him. I want-I want so many things. Sometimes, I just want."
Turning The Page by @queerofthedagger / art by @schweetheart
I started this fanARTifact in July 2021 and finally, finally finished it in September 2024. Click below to see so many more pictures and read probably too much about the project.
This project was a LABOR OF LOVE because y'all...I failed so, so many times during the making of it. I had grand dreams of all the things that I was going to do and learn and every single time I tried something it was like the universe telling me to go ahead and go fuck myself, we're not doing that. But it's done and I'm pleased with it. I hope Mona and Schweets are. Let's talk about the process.
I read this story back in July 2021 when it came out and immediately wrote @schweetheart on July 23, 2021 to ask if I could use her art for the back because it was such a crucial part of the story.
She graciously allowed me to use it, and even sent me a high res file so I could have the portrait of Arthur printed on art paper.
THEN. My brilliantly stupid self decided that just making the book wasn't enough. I mean, I had already done that for Arthur's journal back in 2020 and I am nothing if not a nutter about learning to do new things, especially for my fanARTifact series.
SO. I'm going to learn to make paper. Yeah. Totally a reasonable escalation in terms of new skills, right?? ......... Nope. I bought a small 5x7 mould and deckle to practice with and some cotton linters to make the pulp. Twas. A. Failure. I didn't have a press or the felts or the sizing needed to make the paper actually, ya know, usable. This was the first time I put the project down for a while.
Moving on to another new skill in late 2021, I decided that I wanted to make the walnut ink myself. Luckily, I was part of a pigment subscription in 2020 (that is a hell of a nerdy statement, even for me) and had all the supplies in my art studio to attempt this endeavor.
I didn't fail this part! Fucking huzzah for small miracles. Now I had two small bottles of black walnut ink to use for the calligraphy that I wanted to do for some of the excerpts. Except now I was stuck again on the paper making part so I put it back down again for an eternity.
Picking it back up in late 2022, I asked Mr. Highlynerdy to make a custom size mould and deckle for me so I could have long pieces to fold for my signatures. It was his first time doing anything like this but he's a buddy and a pal and gave it a try. Surprising no one if you've read this far, we both failed this part. Even now, I'm still not sure we succeeded but eventually we did get something workable. And considering professional mould and deckles cost in the hundreds of dollars...yeah, it'll do.
It took a hot ass minute for me to feel ready to attempt the paper making again but once I was ready, I ordered wet, pre-beaten pulp from Twinrocker. A very curt man on the phone helped me figure out what I needed and added internal sizing to the pulp I ordered. I didn't take pictures of any of the paper stuff because it was very messy and annoying. Once again, Mr. Highlynerdy helped me rig up a drying box with tri-wall cardboard and ratchet straps and a box fan. Once the paper was dry, I used a gelatin mixture to paint on external sizing. Since I'm primarily a painter, I needed the paper to be able to handle ink, paint, pencil. Sizing paper is the only way to do this, but no worries, I won't go further into the nerdy details about this.
Once the paper was ready, I decided to sew the text block. Here's another part where I failed YET A-FUCKING-GAIN. I talked before on Arthur's Journal post about how books were very, very rare in the 6th century (Arthurian period), but BBC Merlin is soooooo anachronistic that it's fiiiiiine to just do what I wanted. HOWEVER. I did want to try to do visible spine binding. But. Unfortunately I had gone ahead and used all of my paper to bind the text block as if I was going to case it in. FUUUUUUUCCCCCK. It's fine. We're fine. Come on, brain. What can we do.
Well, what we CAN'T do is use a piece of leather from my large remnant that I bought for my first journal because someone - FUCKING ME - measured and cut the last piece NOT TAKING INTO ACCOUNT THE WIDTH of the text block. So now it doesn't fit. And refusing to buy a new piece of leather I'm forced to pivot once again.
I decided to cut the leather spine even shorter, buy some wood pieces and sand them, paint them a matte black, and then glue the leather to those pieces. Cool cool cool. We're moving on. I tested a lot of different glues for this and good ol' super glue ended up being the clear winner. Cue putting this project away again for a whiiiillle.
In October 2023, I decided to pull it out again and do the calligraphy and drawings I wanted. This story has so many gorgeous parts but I finally decided on the first page, the last page, and the page about Gaius.
I mixed my handmade walnut ink with my beloved Finetec gold and used the quills I bought from John Neal Booksellers to practice my Uncial. I shouldn't have been rusty after lettering an entire fic for this fanARTifact, but I was.
The little dragon was inspired by medieval manuscript dragons I found.
Narratively, I loved the idea that Merlin's writing would start off soft and delicate and become stronger by the end of the journal. Also, I loved that the end word "WANT" would be just gold because the ink blend changes throughout. Something magical or whatever.
This part needed tears. They might have been real ones...
Annnnnnnnd, the project was put down again until a few days ago when I decided, after getting back into Merlin fic, I needed to buck up and finish it.
I did so many tests for the cover. I tried embossing, carving, and debossing and hated all of them. I settled on painting it with acrylic paints in the shape of a Celtic knot sort of pattern. I originally wanted to do a triskelion but after reading a bit about how some asshole groups have co-opted the symbol for shitty purposes, I decided against it. It's a mix of black and gold and it's hard to capture the depth of it through photos...eh, I did what I could.
Still. Something wasn't quite working with the brown leather and the black covers with the new symbol so I broke out my matte black leather paint and decided to go all black.
All I had left to do was glue in the text block and it would be done! And that still took me a few days to work up the courage. The book opens nice and flat, which will be good for me as I will use it as a sketchbook.
Sitting here, on September 1st, I have completed a project that taught me many new skills and also taught me a lot about humility and perseverance. There was no way I was going to abandon this project, and maybe I should have started over many of the times, but I am quite in love with the final result and I just hope that it does it's inspiration proud. Thank you @queerofthedagger Mona for all you create and share with the Merlin fandom, and thank you @schweetheart for allowing me to use your gorgeous art.
Also, you may see quite a few other fanARTifacts in this photoshoot because I will use any opportunity to show them off lol.
If you read to the end of this, you deserve a cocktail and a cookie. Thank you. šāØāØ
