Fore-edge book art

I love the idea of painting the fore edge of a book.  This is the edge of the paper opposite the spine.

This seems to have three main styles.
1) "spray" edges where one or all naked edges of the paper is coloured.  It was quite common to colour just the top edge of the book to protect it from dust and sun damage.  But more modern styles will spray all three edges and sometimes use stencils to add a design.  

2) Fore Edge painting.  Painting a design on the edge of the book - either just the fore edge or all three edges.  



3) hidden fore edge painting.  This is where the image is invisible until we fan out the pages, then it shows up.  





Fore edge painting is an English art going back well into the middle ages.  It became more popular after the printing press and is an endangered craft.  If I remember right, there are only two full time fore edge painters in the world - one is Martin Frost... the other I can't remember but will figure out as we go along.  

These days it's popular among book collectors all over the world.  Newer book sets are often painted like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, etc.  And more common in the 20th Century is to paint the edges of gilded (gold edged) antique books to increase their value.  

The gilding helps hide the painting even more.  


More modern versions we see on tick tock and other social media have people using acrylic and spray paint.  I find this amusing because they then have to separate all the pages one by one and often rip the book.  

Traditionally watercolour is used for a few reasons
- it doesn't glue the book together
- it is often archival so won't damage the paper
- has qualities that will protect the paper.

For my first experiment, I found a book I want to read in the second-hand shop and bought it for a dollar.  It's a very common book, so if I damage it, it won't matter.

Traditional watercolours might be best for this, but I want to test Japanese watercolours because they can be painted as opaque or as transparent depending on the amount of water.  

Water control is going to be important and I suspect the hardest thing to learn.  One the tricks is to press the edges tightly so the water and thus paint cannot travel into the textblock (the part of the book with 'normal' paper).



I'll be painting along the closed edge of the book and seeing what it's like.  Then read the book to see if the paint wears off.

I suspect a lot of fore edge painted books aren't read but kept as collector's items.  

Here we go.



This was an entirely different experience than I expected.  The paint whooshed into the paper and I could basically dab it and all the paint on the brush would vanish.  

I found myself adding more and more water in hopes that I could spread the paint and this wasn't the best choice.  It made the paint absorb into the paper faster.  And further.



It needs a much dryer paint.  I also need to press it in such a way that the spine isn't in the way and the pages can be more together.  

I chose this book because I want to read it and so far none of the paint is wearing off and my hands aren't changing colour.  

This is something I would like to play with once my painting skill gets good enough.  

This has been the most helpful video so far.  

I've got a stack of used books to practice on.   I need to make a clamp.

The other thing I want to figure out is hidden fore edge paintings.  Does it require the page be guilded (foiled)?  

My life is extreme chaos right now, but I managed to find a corner of calm where I could set up a little painting station.



I'm going to do some fore-edge painting.  But first, standing because this was rough cut and that edge needs to bee smooth.



With the book in the vice, I can sand.  I started with 180 grit and ended up stopping about 1k grit because I'm not planning on gilding this, I just need it even enough to take the picture.

I'm using Beam Paints because a) I love them best of all and b) they were the only ones I could save from the chaos.



They say that watercolours is all about the paper.  And they are right!  This paper is not even a little bit like watercolour paper and the colour shifts dramatically.  It's like learning to paint all over again.  I'm glad I stared somewhere repairable like the sky.

Let's put a boat in there.



The boat took a lot of time to learn how many sticks and bits of cloth it needs.  Apparently that's important.  I asked someone who knows boats and they said the end I thought was the front wasn't and yes, I got it good enough for that distance/size that it looks like the HMS Indefatigable.  Apparently it's a real ship or was or something.  

I think we need some water



You know, some of this is based on a very old painting of the same ship and some of this is based on some clouds I saw the other day glowing pink after sunset.  And the ocean, I don't even know if I got it right.  So I went impressionist.

It was also late at night so I accidently choose the wrong colours and used sparkly paint for the ocean.  The funny thing is, it looks really good with the sparkles but I'm sure they will fall off.