How to make “An illuminated Book of Cats”
“An illuminated Book of Cats” 2010
words by Rod Morgan, illustrated and handbound by Mo Orkiszewski
with musings by Ariel P. Cat
7 years in the making, our 21st C abecediary was inspired by medieval manuscripts, coptic binding & a bossy cat.
in 2010-2011 I hand bound 17 copies of our cat book in leather
to raise the letters I printed out the title page, pasted it on thin cardboard, cut out each letter with a no 11 scalpel blade and glued the letters in place onto a second printout pasted on the book board for the cover
using a mixture of bookbinding paste and acid free PVA (which has a long drying time) I pushed the leather tightly around all the letters with a bone folder
finishing off with a steel dental tool defines the edges
each folio is Stonehenge 245 gsm paper edge bound with a strip of fine leather
paper ripped to size and folded with a bone folder
the Canon Pro 9000 MkII A3 inkjet printer makes digital magic with the Hahnemuehle Photo Rag Satin 310 gsm paper
The Letter A prepared for applying 23K gold leaf
preparing covers for coptic binding
preparing the text block with a template so all the holes line up perfectly
starting the coptic binding with the back cover
it doesn’t matter how many times I do this binding Rosemarie of Sydney Bookbinding 2003 class notes are brilliant!
pasting in the plates with a Pritt archival glue stick
stitching the coptic heandband
the bound book
painted edges with Jo Sonja rich gold matte fluid acrylic
dedication to Ariel
here’s a recording of Old Man Crow’s song for Ariel
Little Pussycat
the bluecatheaven website and e-mail in the photo above no longer exist
but you can read our illuminated book online here
It's Crow Time 