#bluecedarstudios

BARK BOOKS (2020 - present)

I first conceived the idea of bark books whilst walking in my local woods, during a period of tree felling, where I saw many small pieces of bark on the ground. At the time, I was primarily binding books using the Criss-Cross or Secret Belgium binding technique and realised the spine section could be substituted with a piece of bark.

The covers are paper painted with walnut ink to give the impression of wood and the pages inside are a mixture of blank recycled paper and ecodyed paper.

Although these books have been made with the intention to be written in, they are beautiful miniature structures in their own right.

A6 Handbound Lined Notebook with Ecoprint Covers

The cover are covered with my hand dyed ecoprinted paper, which were created by layering leaves between the sheets of paper and boiling for 1 hour. The leaves have all been sourced from my garden and the local area in the south-east of England.

The book has been hand bound using the criss cross or Secret/Hidden Belgian binding method, which allows for exposed decorative stitchwork on the outside, a hard spine to protect the paper inside, and opens flat for easy use.

FROM THE GARDEN: NOVEMBER 2019 (2023)

From the Garden: November 2019 (book) is part of a series of ecodyed works I created in November 2019, when I was first experimenting with the process. The prints were created by layering foliage collected from my garden onto long strips of paper, and wrapping them around rusted tin cans, which were boiled with onion skins for about an hour. The lines of the tin can and the lines of the string I used to tie the paper around the can are visible within these prints.

Handmade A6 concertina book with ecoprint cover

These are one of a kind hardcover accordion-fold journals which are ideal for sketching, when you are working on the go or don’t want to be constrained by page size, or used for displaying photos or artwork.

The book has 20 faces (including front and back of each page and inside of covers) and measures 4"x6".

SPECIMEN (2019)

Specimen explores the subject of decay by drawing parallels between the organic rust marks on paper and bacterial growth in a petri dish. Not only are there similarities visually, but the spread and multiplication of bacteria is reminiscent of the way decay (represented here by rust) slowly spreads and takes over.

Specimen is a back-to-back accordion-fold book, constructed from two concertinas (one rusted dyed with tea, the other black paper with cut-out windows) that are stitched together, with black thread, in the valleys. The cover boards are covered with tea and rust dyed paper and it is completed with a removeable cover made from black card with a window cut out and a ribbon to tie closed.

RUSTED GATEFOLD (2023)

Rusted Gatefold has been created using the Secret Belgium or Criss-Cross binding method to create a wrapped, gatefold front cover. The cover is a mix of tea dyed and rust dyed paper, with recycled blank paper inside.

OVER TIME (2019)

Over Time explores the progression of decay (represented here as rust), but in reverse. The book begins with heavily rusted paper, but as it continues, the pages become less rusted until the last page where the marks are very feint. Much of my work is concerned with the decaying of our world, but in Over Time I explore what the reversing of that decay might look like.

The pages of the book are rust dyed with vinegar. The paper has been folded to create valleys, which are then stitched by machine on the mountain folds to form a concertina. The cover is bleached black cotton.

The first batch of ecoprinting this year.

I didn't have high hopes for this to be honest. The leaves I used were picked back in the spring/summer and frozen, and some of them looked a little worse for wear when I got them out of the freezer. But clearly looks can be deceiving, because almost all of the prints turned out beautifully.

The only slight downside is I went a bit heavy handed on the rust and overpowered the cranberry teabags, so the paper came out a bit more grey than green.