This January in the capital city of Estonia Alexander Vasin and Natalia Velchinskaya have produced a new course – Tallinn Laboratoria. Alexander and Natalia are creators of many typography and book design courses, both in Moscow and abroad. This time they’ve brought a group of students to study in a local print house Labora Tallinna Paber.
I’ve just received my copy of the first issue of Pressing Matters. This new magazine, published in Bristol, UK, is a real treat both for the people of print and curious bystanders. OK, I’m not sure I can take upon myself to speak for printmakers. However, I’ve just checked what they are writing on social media and I’ve seen only positive reviews.
I’ve been to the Netherlands several times, but still never used my chance to visit Zaan mills. Maybe next time I would plan my trip better. This place is full of history and, by the way, there is paper production there.
I have to put a small foreword here. On my free time I watch a lot of woodworking videos. There are bookbinding channels that I follow, of course. But they do not provide as much material. And I work with wood to make the tools I sell at my Etsy shop.
Hi everyone!
I had a really busy time these past weeks. As my day job is at school, I had to attend to several exams for 9th graders.
Papermaking processes were first documented during the Eastern Han period (25-220 CE). However, the earliest piece of paper found dates from 179-41 BCE.
Almost during all my classes I have to face the same problem time after time: I almost never finish the book I’m making with my students.
This new era of 3d-printed things is finally drawing upon me and my bookbinding workshop. I’m already using some plastic star knobs to tighten simple presses (and plan to start selling these modified versions pretty soon at my Etsy store).
“Dürer, born on May 21st, 1471, produced one of the largest prints ever – the Triumphal Arch for the Holy Roman Emperor. Altogether it’s nearly 3 metres tall, and consists of 36 sheets of paper. This colossal image was printed using 195 different woodblocks and was made between 1515 and 1517.
In this behind-the-scenes video, follow the complex conservation involved in caring for this 500-year-old artwork.”
It already has been a month since I’ve started teaching kids bookbinding. We’ve covered Coptic binding, Japanese binding (I’ve told them about Chinese and Korean binding too), and long-stitch binding. This time I decided to teach them something boring. Just to understand how to cover some other topics and, especially, how to teach them separate processes of bookbinding, when a student doesn’t get a finished book at the end of a 2-hour class.
My wife and I had a weekend getaway in Armenia recently. That was a spontaneous decision, made partially because we don’t need a visa to get to the country (by the way, EU and US nationals do not need a visa to visit Armenia, this applies both for tourism and business trips). However, I couldn’t miss a chance to search for some bookish landmarks.
Every month I add new blogs to my feed. It is really inspiring to see all these fine people writing about bookbinding and book conservation tricks, their projects and thoughts. At the same moment, it becomes harder to filter links for our monthly digest — there is just too much I’d like to share with you!
My wife and I are having a weekend getaway to Armenia just in a few days.
Oh, wow! This is some lightning-fast bookbinder’s work!
I just would be glad to see the same process in a higher resolution…
