My hand-made artist book, The Grafik Guitar, has recently undergone a wonderful transformation by virtue of being creatively bound and covered by Imogen Yang. The result: it’s art!

The Grafik Guitar artist book, front cover-bookbinding design by Imogen Yang. (Photo-© 2013 Michael Hill).

The Grafik Guitar artist book, endpapers. (Photo-© 2013 Michael Hill).

The book consists of 38 prints on the theme of the deconstruction of elements of the guitar. The images were carved in lino and wood following the Japanese creative print (sosaku hanga) approach using Japanese knives, gouges and chisels and printed on Chinese 2 ply paper with Dr. Ph. Martin’s water colour ink and some sumi.

The Grafik Guitar artist book, pages. (Photo-© 2013 Michael Hill).

Imogen emboss-printed the guitar strings block onto a strip of kangaroo skin for the front cover and had me add my signature chop. Her use of 6 thick binding strings to the front and back cover boards echoes the guitar’s 6 strings and I can’t explain the stitching pattern she has employed to bind the pages together. As an iteration of the cover design she has used my separate guitar strings prints for the endpapers. Wow!

The Grafik Guitar artist book, cover and stitching-bookbinding design by Imogen Yang. (Photo-© 2013 Michael Hill).

The book is currently on display at the Art Gallery of NSW in the 16th annual exhibition of the Australian Bookbinders. The exhibition runs from 7th November to 14th December in the Research library and archive.

The Grafik Guitar artist book on display in the Art Gallery of NSW.

Posts of my graphic based material include:  THE GRAFIK GUITAR   BOOKBINDING THE GRAFIK GUITAR   CARTOON   MORE CARTOONS   RESEARCH CARTOONS   UNIVERSITY CARTOONS    POSTCARD    POSTCARD-Second Series    POSTCARD-Third Series   POSTCARD-Fourth Series   PRINT Fish One   PRINT Fish Two   SCRAPBOOK  SCRAPBOOK-More Pages   SCRAPBOOK-A Few Pages More  and the posts on production of my artist book/comic BLOTTING PAPER:  Issue #1: No.1   No.2   No.3   No.4   No.5   No.6   No.7   No.8   No.9   No.10   No.11   No.12   No.13   Issue #2: No.14   No.15   No.16   No.17   No.18   No.19   No.20   No.21   No.22   No.23   No.24   No.25   No.26   No.27   No.28   No.29   Issue #3: No.30   No.31   No.32   No.33   No.34   No.35   No.36   Issue #4: No.37   No.38   No.39   No.40   No.41   No.42   No.43   No.44   Issue #5: No.45   No.46   No.47   No.48