Guitar Logo Process

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Part of a gift for an aspiring luthier. The logo design was completed using Affinity Designer.

Cardboard Christmas

Character Design-Skittr

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Bi- Cycling

I wanted to turn a paperback Bible into a collection of 5 smaller books.

Covers and guts.

I designed 5 symbols for the covers that captured the theme of the contents and freehanded them onto the covers.

Cover for volume 4

Creative re-use of a Speed Stick dispenser

Before and after

Remove the guts. Use packing tape to attach a cardboard base. Remove stickers and decorate with paint pens. What results is a sin and portable art tool container.

Inktober Day 15

Speedy

Inktober Day 11

Under sketch

Skygazer on the lookout!

Ready-made Book Covers from cardboard box art

When making my handmade sketchbooks, I enjoy recycling found designs from bags, boxes, and Other ready-made art. We are surrounded by interesting colors, textures, and designs which invariably get tossed into a landfill somewhere. Why not repurpose the artwork instead?

The samples in this post are from a case of Kraft macaroni and cheese boxes. Using current gated cardboard for book covers is not the best choice because the current Dacian makes for bumpy texture. It also tends to compress over time.

Instead, I prefer to “skin” the surface layer Of the boxes which have the designs printed on them. This outer layer is usually comprised of 2-3 paper layers Which will provide an additional amount of strength and durability to the book cover.

Choose a section of the box that is free of any seams.

With the design side down, start at a corner and peel the current gated layers away from the outside box skin

Continue to carefully separate the two layers. Take your time.

Work the separation of layers so that it becomes parallel to the lines of corrugation. After you have a few inches you can roll the two surfaces away from each other. A Thick dowel or other long thin cylinder works well.

Voilà!

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The image Above is a quick mock up to demonstrate what the final product might look like. Usually I embellished cover artwork with additional unique touches (Paint, collage, pens).

Top Reasons to make your own Sketchbooks

Early on in my art journey, I used these:

Old School, store purchased with slight personal embelleshments

Now I use these:

New school : a cornucopia of unique, customized sketchbooks

Why the change? There are so many excellent reasons to make your own sketchbooks:

1. Simple – Making simple sketchbooks is incredibly easy. You can spend more time, money and energy crafting more complex books if you want to, but creating a basic moleskine-esqe sketchbook can take as few as 15 minutes:
   • For pages, fold 10 pages of computer paper in half.
   • For the cover, cut and fold a cereal box or old manilla folder (or even a piece of watercolor paper) into the same size as the folded pages
   • Nest the pages inside each other and insert into the folded cover
   • With a pushpin or large embroidering needle poke 3 pairs of holes all the way through the pages and cover.
   • Starting on the outside top of the spin, sew the cover and pages together with waxed dental floss by weaving in and out of the 6 holes. Once you exit through the bottom hole, weave back up through the holes and tie the floss off at the top. Done!
   • Bonus tip: To prevent dog-earing of the pages, I cut of the corners at a 45º angle or use a corner punch.
2. Inexpensive – You likely have most, if not all of the components you need right now. All it takes is the time to produce a book.
3. Free stuff is everywhere – You’d be surprised what you start to notice in the way of free materials once you begin creating your own books. Recycling opens up a world of possibilities without you needing to spend a dime. There us so much beautifully designed stuff going into landfills everyday: used wrapping paper, packing paper, cereal boxes, binder plastic, fast food and grocery bags, junk mail, fabric from old clothes or furniture…and that’s just the tip of the iceberg!
4. Innovation– Try different materials for your cover. Collage cover designs from junk mail and other found materials. Try unique closures. Fold pages with pockets for inserting loose drawings. Add a built-in cardboard easel to the back of your book or elastic loops to hold you drawing arsenal. Wrestling with recycled art surfaces (like old manilla envelopes) can also push your art in ways that store-purchased books won’t.
5. Recreation– it can be so fun and relaxing to design and produce a one-of-a-kind piece of art…that you will then fill with more art!
6. Customizable sizes– You can make a sketchbook to suit your particular needs and desires: portrait, landscape, square, triangle, comic strip-narrow, tall and vertical, double-fold out. The possibilities are endless.
7. Customizable drawing surfaces- You can use whatever material for your book that you want, or mix your book to include several different kinds of paper. You can even prepare your pages in advance before you bind them. For example, coat pages with gesso to facilitate acrylic paint or to give your pencils and charcoal more to grip. With multiple signatures (groups of folded paper sewn together to make a thicker book) you can have sketch paper up front for character and environment design and bristol board at the back to draw and ink your final comic pages.
8. Psychology– Ever have “blank page syndrome”? Fill your page with recycled newsprint or previously crumpled brown packing paper. Does a thick 150 page sketchbook intimidate you? Make a skinny book that you can complete in a week. Have trouble always having a sketchbook on hand when you’re out and about? Make a quarter-pager to keep in your pocket with a ballpoint pen or mechanical pencil. You can build a book to meet your psychological needs as well as your artistic purposes.
9. Community- Sketchbooks are fun to give to friends, family and even strangers. They facilitate sketch crawls and are less intimidating (especially when colorful) when sketching in public. They can also be great conversation pieces.
10. Chronology– since each book is potentially unique, they serve as visual reminders of projects (make a dedicated all-in-one book for a particular project) or phases in your artistic development. You can even include a system on the cover to help you find a particular completed book once it’s resting on your shelf.

There are more reasons, but I think I’ve made my point. If you’d like to see some close up samples of sketchbooks I’ve made, see below.

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Jack O Rooftop Pin-Up