Japanese Stab-Bound Books

As we near the end of my semester here in Florence, that means finishing time for projects. The most recent artwork I finished was a set of four Japanese stab-bound books for Printmaking & Book Arts. Each book displays a different traditional stab-binding technique.

The covers for the books are monotype prints I cut in half. Monotype is a unique type of printmaking for which ink is applied to a sheet of glass or plastic and then run through the press—and each print is unique, as you must “re-paint” the sheet for the next print. For the covers, I experimented with different methods of applying/removing the ink to create non-representative abstract designs which lend themselves well to book covers.

The books measure 21x15cm.