It takes a lot of practice. It's lovely and messy
to do! Great play therapy and a useful and beautiful product.
Basically you need a flat tray, a brass curtain rod rod and a
drying rack.
Bring only just to the boil Irish carageen moss in a pan full of
water. It smells wonderful. The whole Atlantic ocean in your
house. Let cool overnight. The next morning add the same amount
of water, but cold this time.
On a large level covered table place the tray, sheets of paper,
colours and small brushes, a brush for each colour, and the rod.
Pour some of the filtered carageen moss preparation onto the
tray.
Add a drop of ox-gall (buy this, Windsor and Newton, from an art
supply store) to each colour. Then, with the brush, shake drops
of colours onto the surface of the water.
You can next take a stick or brush handle and make a wavy design
or a straight one through the colours, not touching the bottom
of the tray.
Gradually place a sheet of paper on the surface, opposite corner
to opposite corner or there will be bubbles that spoil it.
Lift the paper from one end onto the rod and draw it over it
allowing the excess to fall back into the tray. (They never told
this secret in books and I only learned it from watching the
process being done in Florence!)
Place the sheet on the drying rack.
Repeat the whole process.
Not all the sheets will be successful. But acceptable ones sell
for at least €10,00. Each is unique.
We have now
experimented with doing both sides. Necessary to let the first side
completely dry, then do the other side on a different day.
These make fine booklet covers, especially with a
transparent guard sheet.
BOOK
BINDING
I am blessed with the Victorian book binding equipment from my
convent, a press, a sewing frame, a vice, a saw, an ivory
smoothing stick, an awl, a large needle, and the spool of linen
thread I bought in Florence before all its crafts shps closed
down.
To donate to the restoration by Roma of Florence's
formerly abandoned English Cemetery and to its Library
click on our Aureo Anello Associazione:'s
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