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Write Create Make: Making

Welcome, Artists and Makers!

Thank you for exploring the resources and your creativity. Whether your interest is in writing, design, or making with your hands, I hope you will find the resources, tools and materials helpful and inspiring. 

Collaborate, learn from one another, and share your strengths. 
Learn or relearn hand-lettering, calligraphy, or drawing. Study page design and typography. Learn all about paper, eastern and western, and ink— their color, texture, and the effects they create. Experiment with paper-making and ink-making, using plants, flowers, roots, barks and berries. Recycle fruits and vegetables from the kitchen. Be an eco-maker. Explore possibilities.
 

See also the How to Make Zines LibGuide and How to Make a Zine to the Future Videos! 


Image credit source

Books | Journals to Inspire

Calligraphy

  • Society for Calligraphy. “The Society for Calligraphy, Southern California, is a non-profit educational organization which promotes the study, teaching and practice of calligraphy and related disciplines.” Check out the Society’s newsletter and calendar for workshops and free monthly meetings/demos held by the seven regional groups of the Society in Southern California. 
     
  • Contemporary Calligraphy, by Denish Lach , 2014  Amazon

Book Arts Organizations

Related Arts

 

           Part I: MaterialsPart II: TechniquePart III: History + Content
 

  • Mark Making, a blog by Lynette Ubel. 

  • Mark Making. “Mark making describes the different lines, dots, marks, patterns, and textures we create in an artwork. It can be loose and gestural or controlled and neat. It can apply to any material used on any surface: paint on canvas, ink or pencil on paper, a scratched mark on plaster, a digital paint tool on a screen, a tattooed mark on skin…even a sound can be a form of mark making.” Tate.org
     
  • Slow Stitch, Claire Wellesley - Smith , 2015 Amazon

Tools | Materials | Suppliers

The Library will provide some tools in the Makerspace. Yet we recommend that you purchase the essential tools. They are largely inexpensive and it's nice to have your own so you can make/experiment anytime. You can consider purchasing optional tools if you find them useful. 
 

ESSENTIAL TOOLS
  • Self-healing cutting matt (various sizes; consider the size of paper you want to cut on)
  • Utility knife / Olfa / Xacto knife (the first two will last longer; the last is helpful when cutting very fine paper)
  • Scissors (large, and small for finer details)
  • Bone folder (to score, flatten creases, smooth surfaces)
  • Awl (to make marks and holes; notice they range the sizes and sharpness)
  • Pencils (H or softer) and erasers (friendly to paper surfaces)
     
MORE TOOLS
  • Book-binding needle (if your zines will be made in pamphlet or other style that requires binding
  • Linen thread (strong, will last a long time; notice the size variety)
  • PVA (if you'd like to glue images, etc. to your zines, using archival quality glue)
  • Triangle (a variety of sizes)
  • Paper clips / Bulldog clips (to hold things together)
  • Japanese hole punch (to drill through layers of paper easily, even through binder's board)

 

MATERIALS
  • Paper
    Printing paper will be fine for practice or even "official zines." Yet there are also a variety of papers out there that you want to check out for the text and cover of your zines. Notice paper has grain direction. As a general rule, align your the spine of the book/zine parallel to the direction of the grain. Paper also has weight: light, text-weight, cover-weight, cardstock, board, and paper on a roll.
     
  • Adhesives
    --Paste. You can prepare your own paste from rice starch, wheat starch, flour. You can recipes via Google.
    --PVA Adhesive: proven quality for archival purposes.
    --Mixture: Mix methyl cellulose with PVA (following package directions) so it is less thick and dries less fast than PVA.
    --Double-sided tape:" 3M #415 as archival quality (you can glue on a cover or images for your zine, etc.)

         (Source: The above information is synthesized from, The Art of the Fold (2017), by Hedi Kyle and Ulla Warchol

 

SUPPLIERS
Suppliers outside of California 

Eco-Making: Ink :: Dye :: Color

  • The organic artist, by Nick Nedo , 2015 Amazon
  • Make ink, by Jason Logan , 2018 Amazon
  • Botanical inks, Babs Behan (Author), Kim Lightbody (Photographer)  Amazon
  • The handbook of natural plant dyes, by Sasha Duerr, Timber Press Inc., 2010 

Making Paper

  • The Papermaker's Companion: The Ultimate Guide to Making and Using Handmade Paper , by Helen Hiebert , 2000
  • Washi: The Art of Japanese Paper Making, by Nancy Broadbent Casserley , 2013 Amazon