A week ago when I reviewed the Kraft-cardstock-cover book I mentioned that you might make a newsprint dust jacket for it while you’re using it.
Some of you may not have had an experience doing that. I thought I had the instructions up on my blog, but I may have only discussed specific instructions in my class.
I really think it’s a simple skill you need to have (you never know when you’re going to go to the Fair and someone who has been eating French Fries wants to hold your book!).
I found the instruction tape from one of my book arts classes.
That is up on my YouTube channel now at this link. And embedded at the bottom of this post.
It was a quick “impromptu” video that I made in answer to a student’s question so it’s important that you listen to what I’m saying about the process as I don’t fold the cover exactly as one needs to. I didn’t want to stop and get a scissors and cut of excess that I end up using. Obviously from the video you can make it the way I did, but you really want to listen to my explanation of what “better” proportions are. It’s always important to know the whys of how we do something.
In the video I use a large sheet of clean newsprint. This is available in large pads or loose sheets in a variety of sizes. All bookbinders I know have some of this around to use for waste paper when gluing during the binding process. But also most of my artists friends have pads of this around to take to life drawing.
If you don’t have newsprint I advise you to NOT use newspapers. The soy inks that are used now have a tendency to rub off on the beautiful cloth we bind our books with. Also the ink will get on your hands and find a way to get into your book when you’re sketching.
There are other inexpensive options. You can use brown wrapping paper that parcels used to be wrapped in here in the US. I still see rolls of this in the stores. I often would buy that to cover tables when I was teaching. (It makes clean up really quick.)
But even better is the large rolls of brown construction paper that builders use. They put it on the floors and carpets as protection when they are walking through sites. And they probably do 10,000 other things with it too.
We have a lot of that here because when we downsized we found ourselves involved in a lot of construction projects at our new location. And when I wanted to plan my gallery walls I would take a large sheet of this and put it on the floor, lay all the framed pieces on the paper, mark the paper, and have a hanging template to refer to. If you’ve got 20 or more paintings you’re hanging on one wall (I think I have 40 in the entryway—yes a bit excessive, but visitors seem to find it fun based on the feedback) it makes the process very easy.
I have no idea how much the brown construction paper costs as I always just got some off of one of the rolls Dick was using in his projects. But I know that it is heavier weight than the newsprint and so when you do fold it you’ll want to score it with a bone folder (don’t cut, just depress) to get the cleanest fold. And of course using the 1/3 fold down, and 1/3 fold up proportion I discuss in the video will be critical if you want the cover to fit your book and open and close easily.
Other papers you can use include
Wrapping papers (they could be quite festive!);
Old maps (we had someone donate some map sheets to the Journal Collective once and they were great for dust jackets, and folded soft covers with pockets!);
Charcoal papers like Strathmore Charcoal Paper (which comes in wire bound sheets of many colors)
Any large size drawing paper that is 90 lb. weight (or so) that will fold easily.
Tyvek
NonWoven Interfacing (not paper, but you can use it)
Fabric (again not paper, but useful, and if you have it around…). You’ll want to have one large piece (or pieces patched together) and then fold them just as you would the large sheet of paper (see video below). I would sew them with a couple stitches at the head and tail on the front and back cover sides, just so they don’t unravel when you are using the book. (Washi tape just isn’t going to hold the fabric.)
Decorating Dust Jackets
If you don’t want a plain dust jacket I think it’s best if you give it some “background texture” before you fold the sheet. I like to use pigment rubberstamp ink for this process. I routinely smear the colored inks in swirls across the full sheet. You can do this by moving your pad across the surface or you can put a bit of reinker on a little palette, dip a paper towel in the ink, and then smear that towel onto the paper for a fun effect. The pigmented inks that I have (what’s left of my Brilliance collection and some Memento pads) will dry and not come off in your hands when you hold the book while sketching.
Test your inks on a small swatch about 6 x 6 inches of the paper you want to use. Let it dry completely and then touch it and rub it to ensure the ink isn’t going to come off. (The great thing about newsprint is that it absorbs the ink!)
Once you’ve decorated the paper sheet, fold and trim and fold and enclose the book as shown in the video.
The dust jacket I pictured today was just the newsprint left plain. When it was all folded, but before I inserted the book (in case any ink soaked through), I stamped the decoration. I let it dry, inserted the book, and then used washi tape as discussed in the video, and visible in the photo.
I want to stress that there is nothing wrong about getting your book dirty and worn looking. I rarely make a dust jacket unless I’m going somewhere I know people will ask to look through my journal.
One reason it’s important for me to do that is that people put scents on their bodies using their hands and then don’t wash their hands. I had a student with lotion on her hands pick up an in-progress journal of mine once and I had to let the book AIR OUT for TWO WEEKS before I could get close to it without an allergic reaction and a headache.
If you’re going somewhere (like a barn) where dropping the book would be seriously inconvenient, a dust jacket would be good to have.
And making a quick dust jacket like the one I demonstrate is a great way to project your journal’s covers if you enjoy doing a lot of mixed media. (The question on how to do this came up in my textures class where we were experimenting with a lot of staining paints and materials.)
Typically I have a “nude” book in a plastic bag, in my pack. The plastic bag keeps the cover corners from too much wear as it gets jostled in my pack, and provides quick waterproofing if I get caught in a rain storm.
I hope this post gives you a better understanding of when it might be useful to have a dust jacket, and how to make one quickly and inexpensively.
Remember you can also use a higher quality paper (like the Charcoal paper or some other drawing paper or printer’s paper like Mohawk Superfine, that just popped into my head) with the intention that the cover will stay as part of your journal.
You can decorate it, and you can also write all over it as you work in the book—my State Fair books have dust jackets and I write all sorts of notes like the phone numbers of farmers who invite me to come and sketch at their farms, on the jacket. Those jackets become part of permanent State Fair Journal for that year. Though if it is really a mess, or someone with French fries got at it, I will simply take photos of the dust jacket so I have the notes, and those photos go into the journal on the final pages.
You get the idea—you’ll find a way to make it work for you, if it is more useful than fussy.
That’s sort of the key to life. Right?!
Here again is the link to the video demonstration if the embedded video doesn’t show below.
