Scratchings: WB Yeats fine binding

‘Scratchings’ is a handmade limited edition book containing selected stories from WB Yeats’ ‘Fairy and Folktales of the Irish Peasantry’, illustrated by artist Talia Mermin.

I was approached by Talia who was working on this W.B. Yeats project as part of a Fulbright study grant. She was spending several months working at Black Church Print Studio printing a series of folklore themed etchings.

Talia was looking for somebody to create a handmade artist’s book: not only to bind it, but also design, layout and print of it.

I worked closely with Talia to design a book that reflects the era that theses stories were collected in whilst also adding a modern feel to it.

Talia supplied me with single sheet hand printed etchings which I then tipped/glued into the folded signatures, before binding.

I put a lot of care into selecting a matching paper that could be digitally printed on but that would have the look and feel of the Japanese paper that Talia printed the illustrations onto.

It’s hard to capture how intricate Talia’s etchings are but I could spend hours looking at them!