JULIAN THOMAS Julian served a four-year apprenticeship at the National Library of Wales, working under John Bowen who had been trained by George Fisher at The Gregynog Press. He has been Head of the Conservation Section at the library since 1980 and has a workshop at home where he undertakes commissioned fine-bindings and some book conservation. Julian was elected a Fellow of Designer Bookbinders in 1996 and has exhibited and been commissioned both at home and abroad. He is an accredited member of the Institute of Paper Conservation and of the National Council for Conservation-Restoration. julian@pymy.wanadoo.co.uk
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A Shropshire Lad A. E. Housman The Tern Press, 1990 370 x 230mm Bound: 1999 Private Collection, UK The horizontal shapes with the exception of the brown calfskin, have been stamped with carved wood blocks. I also used vellum stained a light-blue colour to suggest the sky. These shapes were partly inspired by the Shropshire landscape and the vertical shapes by the human form. Some of the vertical gilded leathers have been inlaid and others have been thinned, compressed and onlaid onto raised pieces of smooth calfskin.
	Pryderi The Gregynog Press, 1998 330 x 200mm Bound: 2001 Private Collection, UK The main part of the design evolved from drawings of the Welsh landscape and was partly inspired by the work of Kyffin Williams, who illustrated the book. The black leather is inlaid with gilded and embossed calfskin and the horizontal brown band is made of dyed pigskin. Small cutaways in the black goatskin reveal landscape images made up of thin leathers that have been gilded, embossed and pared to remove some of the gold.