Making Art Journals with Sharon Peoples

Learn to bookbind! Try this fun workshop with Sharon Peoples where you'll learn all about making art journals.

• Dates: Mondays, 2 – 23 February (4 Week Course)
  
• Time: 9:30 – 12.30 pm
  
• Location: NatureArt Lab, M16 Artspace, 21 Blaxland Crescent, Griffith, ACT

About the course:

This course works begins with simple book structures, so that participants will be able to construct a more complex, large-format sketchbook for the final class.

This first class starts with a discussion about artists’ journals and the needs of how students use journals. This will help students decide what type of papers they would like to use in the final projects. We will begin with a simple five-hole pamphlet book with a soft cover and then to one with a hard cover.

The next project is a small book using Japanese stab binding with a hard cover.

Our next book has multi-sections and bound with a soft cover, then on to a multi-section book with removable pages.

In the last phase using the skills of the previous classes we will then make an A5 journal with a hard cover before moving on to a larger A4 journal with a soft or hard cover (participant’s choice).

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Hand-bind a hard cover book
• Hand-bind a soft cover book
• Sew book sections together
• Make informed choices of suitable papers, card and glues
• Learn about the grain of paper

Pre-requisites: This course is suitable for 16+ beginners with little to no bookbinding experience, or for those wishing to build on the foundations of their bookbinding practice.

Materials:  $50 (payable to the tutor) for materials:

• Awls ($10 each)
• Linen thread, needles, beeswax, baking paper, chux, foam rollers for glues
• Papers, card
• Glues

A list of additional material and equipment (such as paper, scissors, apron) for students to bring will be provided before the first class.

Any questions can be directed to info@natureartlab.com.au

About the tutor:

Dr Sharon Peoples has worked as an artist in Canberra for over 25 years, exhibiting
nationally and internationally as well as taking on commissioned work. She has had
twelve solo exhibitions since 2010, the most recent were ‘Garden Promenade’
Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra, Oct (2024) and ‘From the Highest
Tree’, Avid Gallery, Wellington NZ (2023). Sharon spends much time wandering and
wondering about gardens. From her own domestic garden to the local bushland and
further afield to surrounding national parks, she is energised and draws inspiration
by walking in these environments. In recent years a gradual shift to include
bookbinding and making has occurred. One highlight of this activity is having her
handbound book in the exhibition Scripta manent VII “In principio The Word in Arvo
Pärt’s Music”, at the Estonian History Museum, Tallinn, Estonia, Oct 2025. Currently,
her bird-related objects are exhibited at the King Island Gallery where she did a
residency last year.

NatureArt Lab Awards

• 2022, Telstra Best of Business Award for Promoting Sustainability, ACT Winner and National Finalist
• 2024, Telstra Best of Business Award for Building Communities, ACT Winner and National Finalist

Images by Sharon Peoples