Tales from Ovid
by Ted Hughes
This book was given to me to produce a fine binding in leather. The book its self is a paper back signed by Ted Hughes, is a orange terra-cotta with a very intricate illustration on the front cover the illustration is (Narcissus at the Source) a book illumination for Roman de la Rose' by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meung, courtesy of Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris & AKG Photo, London.
The book was firstly dis-bound and pulled for sewing, it was then gilded on all edges then rounded & backed, boards cut and laced on. Headbands were then sewn using gold terra-cotta and blue silks.
To find the correct colour leather was not going to be easy. First I tried going through the different leather swatches of many leather suppliers, whilst, at the same time, working out how to stain a skin my self to the required color. One of our suppliers did have a colour match close to what I wanted but not close enough. As luck would have it when I rang them and explained exactly what I wanted, they said they had one skin that went wrong in the dying stage that may be suitable and they would post it to me, on arrival the skin was perfect. The book was then bound in full 'terra-cotta' morocco once the book was bound it was put in the press to dry and settle.
I next undertook the illustration that needed over 120 individual pieces of leather to make up the picture. I began by paring down the different leathers involved all to the same thickens, then starting with the corners and four edge pieces cut out to the exact size as the original illustration, and pasted them to a thin paper mounted by its edges to a piece of board. Then each square was cut out and mounted in their positions creating the same inlayed mosaic effect as the original. Carefully making sure every piece is the same in every way, it took 18 hours just to get to this point once all the background was in place I was left with the shape of the figure of Narcissus the grass and the tree. Next I cut the shape of the tree out with the grassy area as a whole. This was then carefully inlayed. I then cut out the area of the reflection and inserted a piece of fair calf pared to the same thickness as the morocco leather this was then inlayed. The next pieces to be cut and inlayed were the cuffs, finally the shoes of the figure then the hands were inlayed separately. The figure of Narcissus was achieved by paring a piece of fair calf and mounting it on tissue paper. The face of the figure and the clothing was drawn in with Indian ink, the face on the reflection was also drawn in with Indian ink. The figure was then cut out carefully and inlayed this completed the picture.
The black lines on the inside of the picture were then drawn in and the tree and grass were also outlined with the black ink the book was now ready for the gold finishing of the background. To create the desired effect I used three finishing tools that I specifically shaped to achieve the fine detail required, a short line, a dot and as slightly longer line to join the squares together. This took many hours putting each individual tooling in place. With a very fine fillet I put in the inner lines on the inner edge of the border. The next step was to have a decorative strip made up to place in a type holder. The only brass decorative strip I could get with a wavy line the same as the original picture did not have the dots either side of it. I then cut the strip to the exact size for each side. After the line had been put in place I tooled in the dot's to complete the tooling of the border.
The picture was then cut away from its mount, and the exact size was copied across to the book marked out carefully. Then cut out cutting both the edge of the picture and the joining edge of the cut out in the front cover at a slight angle to allow tooling directly on the joint giving a more stable join. The book was then placed in the press for a few days to consolidate the picture and cover. Using a thick single gold line I put in the gold border of the picture, carefully along the join where the picture was inlayed. Black lines were drawn in on the inside and outside of the gold tooling. Once in place the book was placed back in the press for the rest of the day.
The book was now ready to be labeled, single gold lines on the edges of the boards and inner-edge of the boards. The end papers were laid down and the book leather was dressed and varnished.
