15 December 2012

Book du jour - inside the reading rooms

With the paper folded and cut (cutting became another catalogue of errors!), and the rubbings of "page edges" added to put some "architectural detail" into the rooms, the next decision is what kind of writing to add. The maquette was a way of trying out some single words at the top, almost hidden in the graphite, and some short sentences at bottom, written so they would go around each separate room -
I tried various styles in various inks, using a dip pen and random words -
Writing? Printing? India ink? Quink (for that faded look...) A bit of red? The painted surface of the paper makes it harder to write on ... will whatever I do look too clumsy?

Before sewing the strips together, I suddenly had the idea to add lines, like writing on the page of a book, to some of the rooms, and to some of the "walls" of the rooms - like windows or doors -
Is it a matter - especially in light of the deadline - of "less is more" and "if in doubt, leave it out" -?

What remains to be done? Adding words (or not) to the three "real" books; deciding on, making, and attaching the covers; making a band to wrap round each book; filling in the submission form - and sending them off.

One way of looking at the many decisions involved in bringing a project into its final format is to consider them as possibilities for use in future projects - or even for sparking of an entire project from just one of the possibilities. Exciting as the prospect of continuing with some of these may be, it is now two days before the books must be sent off, there still seems to be a lot to do, and I'm entirely ready to be finished with this project and start thinking about mundane things ... xmas, even...

1 comment:

JAQUINTA said...

I am reading this on 17 December and hoping that you managed to get the books finished and posted off.

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