Welcome to International Fake Journal Month 2013!

What is IFJM?
Please read the page "What Is IFJM" for details.
Learn the difference between Faux, Fake, and Fake Historical Journals.

2019 IFJM Celebration
IFJM has been suspended indefinitely. Please read the pinned post about this below.

Participants who Post Their Journals
A list of 2018 participants who are posting their fake journals this year will appear near the top of the right side bar of this blog around April 6. Lists of participants who posted their pages in 2010 through 2017 appear lower in the same column. Please pay them a visit and check out their fake journals.

View a Couple of Roz's Past Fake Journals
Roz's 2009 fake journal takes place in an alternate Twin Cites, where disease has killed the human and bird populations. (It ends up being an upbeat tale of friendship.) Watch a video flip through of Roz's 2009 fake journal here.

Read an explanation of Roz's insanely complex 2011 fake journal.

Tips on Keeping a Fake Journal
Click on "tips" in the category cloud.

Remember, "Life's so short, why live only one?"


Thursday, May 2, 2013

Starting My 2013 Fake Journal—Before and After Photos

Above: The sort of before photo, by which I mean, the journal when I'd worked in it for one afternoon on March 21, 2013. Read below for details. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

If you've been reading along so far for the 2013 celebration of IFJM you'll know that I used the Leuchtturm 1917 Notebook for my fake journal this year.

The pages really were too thin for simply drawing on them in ink—all the inks I used seeped through on my test pages more than I would have hoped. But I was already in love with the size of the journal and the dot pattern grid on the pages (which oddly you can rarely see now that the book is filled).

Immediately my mind started working on ways to use this book despite of the paper's limitations for mixed media. By now you've also read how this mind churning happened at the exact time I went to visit a friend who was recovering from surgery and watching Gelli Plate Printing videos on the internet. I realized that I could do a combination of techniques to the pages that would make them more resilient to abuse by the mixed media.

Left: The completed book on April 18, 2013. It no longer really closes, in fact typically the cover just flops open. Two days after finishing this book I made the decision to purchase an archival newspaper storage box for this book and store it in a half open position. It's the only thing I could think of that wouldn't put continued pressure on the already stressed spine. Click on the image to view an enlargement.



I began to print monoprints with the Gelli Plate—sometimes on paper I could collage into the journal and other times printing directly onto the page. I did two evenings of printing. The above photo was taken between those two evenings when I had started to stick the papers from the first evening into the journal. I was working with PVA so that water from later painting sessions wouldn't cause the collaged material to buckle up away from the page. Because I was working on several page spreads at a time, and as I worked into April some pages started to have gouache paintings on them, I couldn't weight the collaged material while it dried so that it would dry flatter. (The trapped moisture would have reactivated the gouache paint before the glue had dried and made for interesting pages.) Because the pages weren't under weights when they were drying, and the paper is lightweight, there is a wonderful buckling to every page. The layers of collaged papers are not only buckled across the page but create a stiffness to most pages that makes it a tactile joy to turn these pages. I think you'll see that when I get the video flip through posted.

Left: Detail of the book closed with the book's elastic band positioned around the book. This is the only time I've put the elastic band in this position. The band stretches too much to be useful with this bulk and the front cover is pulled into a curve because of the bulk of the pages. But this image shows how the fore edge of the book is deformed as the thickness of the collaged items keeps the spine from closing properly and pushes the pages out past the cover's edge.

I started working on backgrounds and collage materials on the 18th of March for two reasons. I had a feeling I wasn't going to have the amount of time I had hoped for each day (and in fact that did turn out to be the case) but more importantly my character was someone who was constantly working ahead in her journals and so while she would be finishing up a volume she would be working simultaneously ahead in preparing backgrounds in a new journal.

Left: Detail of the spine now that the book is filled to over flowing. You can see that the ends of the signatures (where paper is folded and sewn together as groups) is now no longer flat against the spine board like it was when I started. Instead it is now convex, creating a circle that is curved outward, pushing the signatures outward. Hence the way the pages jut out at the fore edge. (In my real journals I tend to do only a little collage and I pre-cut out pages, leaving tabs to hold space at the spine. That creates space for the collage materials I do add. Since in this book I wasn't cutting out pages and each page sometimes had 3 layers of collage material there was no way the spine was not going to severely deform. For a description of how and why I cut pages out of my journals you can read "Journaling Superstitions #5: You Can't Cut Pages Out of Your Journal." (About half way through that post I explain my process.) Click on the image to view an enlargement.

If I had waited to work in this journal until April 1 she would not have been in her work flow mode.

When a character speaks so strongly to you, tells you to work on backgrounds for pages she intends to use weeks from now, and insists that you use paper that is unsuitable for mixed media, you simply must listen to the character.

So I printed and collaged and tried to listen to the character as she spoke to me in little bits and pieces during the day. I had hoped to have a "leisurely" month in April where I could take multiple photos of each stage and let you see the gradual growing of the book. But everything happened very quickly—which I learned is what this character likes. You can see some of what happened from photos like the ones in today's post.

I'll have more to write about the interior of this journal and the process. I would like to say this about the Leuchtturm 1917 notebook I used for this year's fake journal—it held up to a phenomenal amount of abuse. Most books would have disintegrated in "pre-production" before April 1, when character  started actually journaling in the book.

Despite the abuse all the pages of this journal are intact and holding firm. No stitches have torn out (this is a sewn book or I wouldn't have tried this approach). The cover of the book long ago lost any remembrance of its hinge space yet even with repeated opening and closing the cover material (which is one of those synthetic coverings that's not paper, leather, or fabric) held up and continues to do so. There is virtually no wear on the cover—except for some acrylic ink that I splashed on it from time to time when I was printing in the book.

I didn't weigh the book when it was new and empty.  By now it must weigh 4 or 5 times as much. It is unpleasant to hold it is so heavy.

I loved working in this book, and if all you do is take notes and you test this paper and love it for that and the pens you use then I have to say you couldn't find a better, more user friendly, and attractive notebook.

And if you want to get all wild and crazy with it and go extremely wild with mixed media—well it's going to hang in there with you.

My character isn't concerned with such niceties. I on the other hand am very, very grateful. And I find myself passing the book as it sits half open on the drawing board, awaiting the arrival of its archival box, and I can't help but page through the encrusted pages and savour the fun of working in this book all over again.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting, esp about cutting pages out. I have so many sketchbooks of various sizes and papers and have been thinking about binding all together. Also like the idea of archival boxes esp for larger quarter page wc. Since you are also looking for these boxes, please post what you find. Thanks! Love the journal but agree; it has become unmanageable. Have you thought of maybe converting to spiral binding?

Roz Stendahl said...

Anonymous,
I frequently bind different papers together (and odd scraps) as you can see in this post about a journal with a lot of different papers and collage I made in 2010 http://rozwoundup.typepad.com/roz_wound_up/2010/12/collage-and-sketching-a-look-inside-a-recent-journalwrap-up.html

It's a lot of fun and since you like different papers I encourage you to go for it.

Archival boxes can be found at photo supply stores and other storage type stores. I have purchased smaller boxes (9 x 12 x 3 inches up to sizes which hold half and full watercolor sheets) for holding loose sheets locally at Wet Paint in St. Paul. But for this oddball storage box I went to Talas. I buy book binding supplies from them but haven't purchased boxes from them yet. You can check them out they have a wide arrange of boxes.

I would NEVER convert any journal to a spiral binding. I pretty much loathe spiral bindings.

I will use the Stonehenge spiral bound sketch books because I love Stonehenge paper so much and the sizes available suit some of the sketching needs I have.

And the MCBA Visual Journal Collective just did a group project collaborative journal for which we all made "backgrounds" and that was bound with a coil so I'll have to work on those pages in a spiral bound format, but other than that spirals are not for me.

I've never had a character for IFJM who wanted to use one either—I guess I can't get that far away from "myself." Part of what I enjoy about IFJM is that I get to test books I wouldn't normally use with just this type of abuse. Since I make my own books the obvious first step away from myself to another character is to use a book that I didn't make. (Last year my character used one of the books I'd bound, and writes about it in the back of the book.)

The types of issues of paper and binding that this book gave rise to aren't usually an issue for me because I bind my own books.

ELLEN said...

Roz: I use Pitt artist pens and colored pencils quite often for urban sketches. I gather that this paper would have show-through to the other side with these materials? I like a smooth paper.
I am intrigued though...

Roz Stendahl said...

Ellen, please read my post on Roz Wound Up http://rozwoundup.typepad.com/roz_wound_up/2013/03/the-leuchtturm-1917-notebook.html

If you click on both of the images that are included in that post you'll see the front and back of the same page. On the front you will see my pen marks and I have labeled them as I wrote with them. On the flip side if you do a simple mental switch you'll find the same writing as it shows through the sheet.

Scanning makes it look a little worse perhaps than it is in life, but it will give you a clear idea of whether or not that's too much show through for your purposes.

Colored pencils are delightful on this paper.