Learn to make your own softcover Japanese bound sketchbook.

You will learn a simple and easily repeatable bookbinding technique perfect for making sketchbooks and visual diaries. The workshop will provide suitable paper for one book but the technique can later be adapted to whatever paper you prefer.

Participants need to bring

Steel ruler – 50 cm minimum length

Pencil

Eraser

Gluestick

Craft knife or cutter with sharp blades

Poster, map, or thin fabric for cover measuring exactly 28 x 58cm. Old maps and navigational charts are particularly good, as are art posters or anything printed on reasonably durable paper.

2 inch bulldog clip

Lunch (please bring your own or pop downtown)

Participants are suggested to bring a selection of papers to make extra books, time permitting. These can be a range of new art papers [cartridge, drawing, watercolour etc] or smaller offcuts from printmaking projects or other works on paper. Sketchbooks are a great way to reuse and repurpose smaller pieces of paper. Lighter weight [200gsm or under] papers are recommended, though it can be interesting to make books with a range of different papers in them.

Following the workshop [time permitting] participants will be free to draw in the gardens at Buda in their new sketchbook

Damon Kowarsky studied printmaking at Victorian College of the Arts and Glasgow School of Art. Since graduating he has travelled extensively. Architecture and the colours of earth and sky inspire much of his work.

Kowarsky is the recipient of awards including a Toyota Community Spirit Artist Travel Award, Creative Victoria New Works Grant and Australia Council Asia-Australia Creative Partnerships Grant. He has worked as a scientific, courtroom, and archaeological illustrator.

In 2007 he taught drawing and studied miniature painting at Beaconhouse National University Lahore. In 2010, 2014, and 2017 he taught printmaking at Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture Karachi.

Kowarsky exhibits regularly in Australia and abroad, including solo exhibitions in Melbourne, Hong Kong, New York, Philadelphia, Wellington, Cairo, Damascus, Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi.

In 2014 and 2017 he was artist in residence at Guanlan Original Printmaking Base. In 2015 he was part of the Bait al Zubair Museum’s inaugural artist in residence program. In 2016 he completed a two month residency in France with the support of the Alfred and Trafford Klots International Program for Artists. In 2018 Warrnambool Art Gallery undertook a substantial survey exhibition of his prints, paintings and drawings. He is currently working on a series of new etchings inspired by travels in North and South East Asia.

Partner of Kowarsky, Hyunju Kim’s magical realism splits worlds and brings different realities together. Recent exhibitions include 2020Secret Garden, Naive Gallery, Seoul, Korea2015 Taseer Art Gallery, Lahore, Pakistan; Potogar Gallery, Rawalpindi, Pakistan; Zahoor ul Akhlaq Gallery, Lahore, Pakistan; Almo Library, Seoul, Korea