A couple of months ago I had an idea to create two gun-shaped books. I thought, “Yeah, that will be easy and fun!” I love the finished product, but damn, they were NOT easy to make.
The most time consuming aspect of this project was cutting the pages. I originally wanted to use a lighter-weight drawing paper, but I quickly realized that would mean I’d have to cut approximately 100 pages. I decided to use a heavier watercolor paper, which reduced my cutting to only 20 pages, but the thick paper made the work hard on my hands. After I had all the pages and covers cut and painted, I created the designs for the covers. I traced the designs in pencil, and then I retraced them with a Sharpie marker. This should have been easy, but I had forgotten that Sharpies don’t work well on top of acrylic paint. I ended up having to clean off the Sharpie tip every few seconds, which made for tedious work. Finally, I bound the pages to the cover with an exposed stitch binding.
When this idea first sprang into my mind, I wanted the books to be stored like real dueling pistols inside of a decorative box. Hopefully my brother Travis can find some time in the future to create it.
Megan Caldwell Chandler 
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