I ignored and shrugged off their comments until I realized why I didn't want to think about them. I didn't have answers to them. Some of their complaints made sense to me. And, dare I say it, some I agreed with. The fact that I wasn't sure about these aspects of my faith that seemed at odds with my core beliefs made me unsettled. What if I delved into this, really delved into this, and I didn't like the information I found? The more I meditated on it, the more ill at ease I became until I decided to find answers one way or the other. And thus, this project was born. Design Sketches I looked into the many complaints that women made against my faith and decided on getting an answer for three of them:
  I liked the designs, but I wasn't complete satisfied with it. (Good eyes will note how I had included pop-up aspects. I really wanted to pursue that idea but for sake of time, I had to drop it.) And as you might be aware with my other pieces, I am a fan of wordplay. So as I meditated about how various parts of the Bible, but especially the book of Revelations, is very female centric, I thought that referencing Revelations would be a good idea. I took a manilla envelope, starting sketching, and the following was the design I went with:
Wood Engraving
Final DetailsStaining To finish off the cover, the first thing I had to do was stain it. I thought that it should be done first because if I started with gilding and accidentally put glue (for the gold leaf to stick to) or gold ink/paint where stain was eventually supposed to go, that those things would create a permanent seal on the wood and therefore repel the stain. Thankfully, it went on easily and evenly.  Gilding The next step was gilding. Usually my favorite part of any project. I wish I could say that the process on this piece was enjoyable but nothing could be further from the truth. Every part had some sort of failure. And some were more catastrophic than others. As an important aside, I mentioned above that I did NOT want any glue/paint/ink on the bare wood before staining. Along that vein, I also did NOT want any glue/paint/ink on the stained wood because it would be insanely difficult to remove without damaging the stain. This is important so you can appreciate my frustration throughout the rest of this process. First failure. What I didn't realize when I drew this cover was just how thin I made the scrollwork (or even how MUCH I drew. Why oh why did I add so many whoop-de-doos). I attempted to paint it with the tiniest paintbrush dipped in gold ink but the lines were so narrow that the bristles couldn't fit. I was very much at panic point because the final BFA show was fast approaching. I ended up grabbing some painters tape and trying to mask the outside of the lines so I could paint over the top without worry about touching the stain. I started taping the curves and even though it was monotonous, I was excited with its potential. I worked for a while then decided to take a break and test it out (I'm so thankful that I didn't tape off the whole thing before testing out. You'll see why.). Here's a picture of the tape and some ink that I tested:  Looks pretty clean, right? Well, I'm sorry to say it fooled you too. While I was under the impression that I has been meticulous, I, surprise surprise, had actually not been. The adhesive either wasn't that great or I wasn't rubbing it down enough, but basically ink had escaped underneath the tape and was therefore on the wood. And to rub salt in the wound, I even got a glob of gold ink completely outside of the line, at the very top left. Here's what it looked like:  I'm not sure how others process their pain, but suffice it to say that there were a lot of tears at this point. I thought I ruined it. There was no time to remake another cover. I sat with my mistake for about 30 minutes or so then got back to work. I was still exceedingly upset and frustrated that I got to the point of not caring anymore. As another aside, that isn't the best mindset to be in (with anything) but especially art making. But I had to work so work I did. Since I would eventually have to figure out how to get the ink off, I decided that it didn't really matter how careful I was with the rest of it. I couldn't keep using the tiniest paintbrush in existence though so I grabbed one of those plastic dental syringes to strategically insert ink in the scrollwork. The tip wasn't small enough to fit in the scrollwork, so it still made a mess, but it wasn't as bad as my first mistake so I kept using it to fill in both the scrolls and letters. Even though the letters were wide enough for me to later on apply gold leaf to them, I still put a layer of gold ink down. Important lesson: I learned from my St. Francis painting that you should always put a layer of gold ink/paint down first before applying gold leaf. That way, if/when the leaf rips (trust me, it totally will), and you see the surface behind it, you only see more gold. Next mistake. I was still mad, tired, and rushed for time so I became lazy. The ink was slowly drying in the syringe and making it more difficult to apply pressure. At one point, it clogged up so I grabbed it with two hands, pushed on the top, and it exploded. Ink exploded out of it. Ink exploded out of it on my cover. Do you see the big globs in the pic below? At first there was just one. But that one was enough to drain the last of the cells in me that cared about being patient so as I continue to work, the globs multiplied.  I wiped up the mess as best as I could and decided to tackle how to get the ink off the areas it shouldn't be. I used a very fine grit sandpaper and, to tell you the truth, it wasn't that bad. I know I worked this up to a point where you were thinking there'd be some dramatic destruction of the cover and a rushed remake, but I managed to salvage my work. Now, there were still light spots where I sanded (and I ended up lightly sanding down the entire cover to help match everything) so the cover wasn't as dark as I wanted, but I knew that if I applied even the lightest touch of a second coat of stain, it would more than likely get pulled into the linework. And there was no. way. I was repainting that gold.
Final Cover Next StepsPlease click here to view the next blog post, which details the first two pages of the book.
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