Book Arts
from advanced 300 level courses: Book Arts, Illustrating Creative Writing, and Self and Society through Photo.
from advanced 300 level courses: Book Arts, Illustrating Creative Writing, and Self and Society through Photo.
All of the projects are not exactly from one course. The first four were from Book Arts, while the next (one photo) was from Illustrating Creative Writing and the last series of photos were from Self and Society through Photo. Although the purpose of these books were irrelevant to each other since they were from different subjects, I decided to group them in one file since they all fell under the 'book' category.
**Please excuse the childish nature of the drawings and penmanship for these first four books. One may think that they appear to be very amateurish but that actually was my intention. Of course, I had access to a computer and a printer, but Book Arts was primarily about the very art of book-making/binding and the craftsmanship that follows. The contents were significant as well but the professor was not too restricting about that part. It also was not due to my laziness to print anything out either; I just happened to have this strong notion that if I were to actually construct these books out of fancy papers, polyvinyl acetate glue, and binder's boards, that I create the inner contents with my hands also. I really liked the idea that this course made us deal with traditional ways and materials, instead of using any kind of technology.
***If you become confused about the contents, thinking they are very strange and random, then you thought correctly- they are exactly that. I gravitated toward exploring the world of existentialism for this course. May I also notify the audience, (if any), that these were not the only books I made. Others were lost or were practice-books, or simply given to people as gifts.
**Please excuse the childish nature of the drawings and penmanship for these first four books. One may think that they appear to be very amateurish but that actually was my intention. Of course, I had access to a computer and a printer, but Book Arts was primarily about the very art of book-making/binding and the craftsmanship that follows. The contents were significant as well but the professor was not too restricting about that part. It also was not due to my laziness to print anything out either; I just happened to have this strong notion that if I were to actually construct these books out of fancy papers, polyvinyl acetate glue, and binder's boards, that I create the inner contents with my hands also. I really liked the idea that this course made us deal with traditional ways and materials, instead of using any kind of technology.
***If you become confused about the contents, thinking they are very strange and random, then you thought correctly- they are exactly that. I gravitated toward exploring the world of existentialism for this course. May I also notify the audience, (if any), that these were not the only books I made. Others were lost or were practice-books, or simply given to people as gifts.
"Goodbye, farewell, adieu, she said. Like lines from an acting script, it was crisp and effortless. The end."
"7 Lines is a 3.5x4.6 inch book that was designed and written by Andrea J. Lee. The title and cover were created with binder's board, white Dickblick paper, archival pen, and clear transparent contact cover. The pastedowns are lime green cardstock and Tarasen tissue paper. The text block was cut from superfine text weight paper. All of the writing and drawing were done with archival ink pen. The last of the series is finished with a long string of fabric."
"7 Lines is a 3.5x4.6 inch book that was designed and written by Andrea J. Lee. The title and cover were created with binder's board, white Dickblick paper, archival pen, and clear transparent contact cover. The pastedowns are lime green cardstock and Tarasen tissue paper. The text block was cut from superfine text weight paper. All of the writing and drawing were done with archival ink pen. The last of the series is finished with a long string of fabric."
The book above was made for no specific purpose because I had found this incredibly fascinating advertisement poster on a bulletin board in the dorm I was living in at the time. I "borrowed" it thinking it would serve well as a front and back cover of a book. This eventually became my personal book/sketchbook where I listed and illustrated all processes of the other books I had made in that class.
4.5" x 10"
26 Pages is a 3.2x7.2 inch book that was designed and written by Andrea J. Lee. The title and cover were created with yellow cardstock paper glued on black corrugated board. The title page/end sheets are yellow cardstock with white Dicblick paper. The text block was cut from superfine text weight paper. All of the writing and drawing were done with archival ink pen and Stabilo colored pen. The second of three series is finished with a blue rubber band tied around the center loop of the spine.
Above is a mock-up book for the midterm project in Book Arts. I ended up abandoning that idea of a conventional square book and created an accordion-style one in the shape of toast (yes, the bread). I had a lot of ideas for the content so I ended up making the book about 12x12 inches. I went even further to craft a huge toaster that ate and popped up the book in the slots allotted for toast as seen on a real machine. My professor was so excited about my project that she took me to an artist friend of hers who collected toasters as a hobby...it was very strange but kind of cool.
The end result of the project was Burnt Toast, the book that stretched out to about three yards, the toaster, and an A. Unfortunately, I do not have documentation of that project I took so long to make because I did not have time to photograph it after it was done and had left it in the basement of my parents' home...in which they decided to throw out. Asian parents don't exactly hold a high value for art- especially for things that look like a toaster and bread.. that was secretly a book.... :(
The end result of the project was Burnt Toast, the book that stretched out to about three yards, the toaster, and an A. Unfortunately, I do not have documentation of that project I took so long to make because I did not have time to photograph it after it was done and had left it in the basement of my parents' home...in which they decided to throw out. Asian parents don't exactly hold a high value for art- especially for things that look like a toaster and bread.. that was secretly a book.... :(
6" x 6"
Unknown Tendencies: Painting with Words was made for Illustrating Creative Writing, in which we had to choose what type of writing we were going to do for the whole duration of that course. We were given the options of the typical novel-style, comic strip-style, poems and/or prose-style. The course grade was based on the final project: a prototype book. So, I chose the last option and made this book out of a collection of prose I had written earlier outside of school that year. Due to the graphic content of most of the pages, I had no heart in me to post them here, as I could easily be seen a psychopath. I really am not though, I promise. I am really just intrigued by the dark side of what art can bring, but other than that I am pretty normal and boring.
8" x 10"
...In Search for an Exit: An Autobiography was made for Self and Society through Photo, a photography course. Let me preface this by saying that this was a mock-up, which means that not only were there a ton of spelling errors but also composition, text, font, and whatever design errors I had not bothered to fix before I printed this up. This was made during a time when many crappy hardships fell upon me as a college student. Basically, I hated my life and questioned why everything in it was wrong, lol.
7" x 8.5"
