You will need the following materials for this session.
Preparing Your Sketchbook Cover.
There are two ways you can prepare your sketchbook cover.
Method 1: Creating a Painted Cover
In this method you will create a painting on the actual cover of the book.
Prepare your sketchbook by painting the cover with a good coat of gesso. You may need to use two coats so that the cover is well-primed and you have clean white surface to work on.
You may find it easiest to open the book out completely and slip a sheet of scrap paper between the cover and the first and last pages of the book to stop it from sticking.
Once the cover is completely dry then let yourself experiment and play on the lovely clean white surface you now have.
You can use collage, paint, oil pastel etc.
Allow your cover to dry again and once it is completely dry is it a thorough coat of gloss medium.
Allow the gloss medium to dry.
You will then need some strong sticky tape to reinforce the spine of your book. Gaffer tape, hockey tape, electricians insulating tape are all suitable options.
Stick some lengths of tape along the spine to reinforce it.
Method 2: Covering the book with a Painting.
In this method you will cover the book very much like you maighthave sone an exercise book at school in this case you will be creaing an attractive and individual paitngins that you will then as your cover.
Begin with two sheets of reasonable quality drawing paper that are large enough to cover your book. Each sheet needs to be of sufficient size for one of the book covers.
On each piece create a cover painting using what ever medium you would prefer. Allow to dry.
Once the piece is dry open up your book with outside cover face up and place one of the painted pages over the cover. Trim the page so that there is a margin of about an inch around three sides extending beyond the edge of the book cover.
The edge that is adjacent to the spine does not need a margin and needs to fit flush against the cover crease.
Trim a each of the corners to make a diagonal.
Turn the whole thing over. Reposition the cover if needed and then fold in the edges tight against the cover so that the edges now overlap.
Give them a good fold so that they are clearly creased.
Remove the paper so that you can apply glue to the surface of one side of the book.
Apply the cover and stick it down carefully. Use the flat edge of a ruler or something similar to run over the cover several times to ensure that you get all of the air bubbles out.
Repeat on the second side so that both sides of your book is covered.
You will then need some strong sticky tape to reinforce the spine of your book. Gaffer tape, hockey tape, electricians insulating tape are all suitable options.
Stick some lengths of tape along the spine to reinforce it.