Workshop Instructor: Tracey Rowledge
Workshop Dates: February 1-3, 2017
Workshop Time: 9:30 AM - 5:30 PM each day
Workshop Location: San Francisco Center for the Book, 375 Rhode Island Street, San Francisco CA 94103

Gold tooling is a fascinating art form. It’s technical, process driven and yet is full of creative potential! Gold tooling on paper bindings is particularly exciting as it allows you to explore ideas without the financial pressure or time constraints you might feel when binding leather-bound books.

Tracey will teach you her technique of gold tooling: she’s methodical and clear in her teaching and her method is similarly straightforward to learn.  There’s no short cut to good gold tooling, but Tracey will teach you all you need to know. With practice, you will able to feel sufficiently confident to gold tool your own books in the future.

Three day course:

This course is suitable for all levels.
You will learn how to handle gold leaf, the processes and techniques of gold tooling with gold leaf (using BS Glaire), blind embossing and tooling with carbon. Foundation skills in gold tooling will be taught and then practised on a series of sample boards.

Day 1 will focus on handling gold leaf and how to create a diaper pattern design (diamond pattern) using two finishing tools.

Day 2 will focus on how to create a gestural image (a free flowing mark/image) and

Day 3 will focus on additional techniques of blind embossing and tooling with carbon.

Tracey will also share how she approaches gold tooling on a paper-covered book, to demonstrate how the medium is brought to life when it is applied to a three-dimensional object.

Biography
Tracey Rowledge studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths’ College, London, and Fine Bookbinding and Conservation at Guildford College of Further and Higher Education, Surrey, UK. She is a member of the independent artists group 60|40, which she founded in 2008 with Clare Twomey and David Clarke. The aim of 60|40 is to expand the environment and opportunities for the applied arts. Tracey is also a founding member of Tomorrow’s Past: an international bookbinding collective whose aim is to encourage an alternative and modern approach to rebinding antiquarian books.

Her work has been shown internationally and is held in various private and public collections including The British Library, London, The National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, and The National Art Library (Victoria and Albert Museum), London. Tracey has received a number of awards for her work, including support from the Crafts Council to go on the 2008 Cape Farewell Expedition to Disko Bay, West Greenland.

Recent work has included a series of drawings resulting from a two-year collaboration with Sarah Warsop, designer and choreographer, commissioned by Siobhan Davies Dance, entitled What Isn’t Here Hasn’t Happened, 2011. Most recent exhibitions include In Parallel, an exhibition of bookbindings at Ian Rastrick Fine Art, UK and Jerwood Encounters for which Tracey made a site specific, solid graphite wall drawing at the Jerwood Space, London.
More information about Tracey at: http://www.traceyrowledge.co.uk/