Instructors: Cat Bennett & Bari Zaki

Dates: Saturdays, January 18, 25, Feb 1 & 8, from 10am–1pm (Chicago time)

This four-session workshop is the fifteenth Bookful collaboration between Cat Bennett and Bari Zaki. Our inspiration for this series, as Cat describes it, is “Travel, because curious and wonderful things happen when we leave home. Writing and making images of the travels we've made helps us remember and see our journeys in a new light. It's fun to see what emerges!”

What you’ll make: A landscape-format accordion book with drop-spine hard covers. The book measures 5¼" x 7¼" x 1¼", and includes two different shaped pockets. You will glue Japanese bookcloth & papers to binders board, making a decorative cover to enclose & protect your accordion pages. Your accordion panel-block does not attach directly to the front cover and spine; instead, a vertical pocket inside the back cover holds your panel-block in place for ease of use and beauty of display. The back pocket also enables you to insert a fresh accordion panel-block for subsequent traipsing & traversing. A diagonal pocket on the inside front cover handily holds postage and ephemera, musings and miscellany.

Workshop #1 – You will measure, score, and fold your 5 Stonehenge sheets (5" x 28") to create five 4-page accordion panels (each measuring 5" x 7"). You will then hinge the panels together using strips of paper and a glue-stick. Next you will glue your Japanese bookcloth & papers to your binders board, completing your decorative cover. Then you will score & fold thick cover stock to make your two pockets for the front & back covers. Finally, you glue & press them to the inside covers. Happy travels!

Nota bene: As always, Bari will record all four lessons as they are happening, and the recordings will be available for you, with no interruptions or delay, almost immediately after each session.

Workshops #2, #3 & #4 – Cat will begin each workshop session with a curated slideshow of inspirations. We’ll see how several contemporary artists & illustrators go about making images with a sense of place. We’ll talk about which approach might work best for our pages and how we can combine various kinds of image-making in our stories. Cat will then lead the class in painting & drawing & collage exercises using a range of mediums.

Workshop fee includes all materials (but not the tools) you’ll need to make one landscape-format accordion book with two pockets.

5 sheets of Stonehenge for your accordion panels (5" x 28")

3 pieces of binders board for your cover (two are 5¼" x 7¼" and one is 5¼" x 1¼" )

2 pieces of Japanese bookcloth (7" × 4")

2 pieces of decorative paper for your front & back covers (6½" x 7")

4 pieces of cover stock for your front & back pockets (5⅛" x 7⅛")

5 paper hinges (¾" x 5")

1 hinge & corner spacer

1 glorious envelopeful of papers large enough to hand-fold envelopes for attaching to your pages; exquisite scraps for embellishing your collages; a few petite glassines for collecting the tiniest of things—and an assortment of waxed-linen threads you can use to stitch bits of ephemera into the folds of your accordion panel-block.

Tools needed: bonefolder, triangle ruler, metal ruler, Xacto knife. You will receive a 20% discount on any tools ordered for the workshop (via refund after your workshop purchase). You can purchase these tools individually here.

Ancillary tools needed: cutting mat, glue stick.

The three palette options shown here (left to right) are: Delft Stripe, Ikat Rose, and Cabana. Please order from the dropdown menu below. If you’d like to purchase an additional set of materials, you certainly can. However, you cannot accomplish this in the dropdown menu (because one set of materials is included with the workshop fee). So, please e me, and I will be in touch extremely promptly. It’s $165 per additional set. Shipping is gratis if you order at the same time as your workshop registration.

Cat and I look forward to sharing our love of bookbinding, drawing, painting, collaging, and travelogue-ing with you in this four-week live Zoom workshop!

About Cat: In her former life, she was a commercial illustrator for 25 years. All three of her wonderful books are available in our shop & online: The Confident Creative, Making Art a Practice, and The Drawing Club of Improbable Dreams.

“I believe that drawing and painting create happiness. I love teaching because I get to see people discover their own creative genius!” – Cat Bennett