My Altered Book Project

Another page!

I have used the words from the page - FOUND Poetry!

eyes
gaze
eyes
peeping
eyes
what art thou?

Paints used were Gesso, Lavender acrylic, and  red and blue gouache. I have made an effort to use colours from the shades of red in keeping with the title 'Scarlet Letter'.  The gold is acrylic paint and was applied using bubble wrap. My penmanship was done with gold ink and the pages were first sealed with Matt Spray and then a layer of Modge Podge.

Each of the pages in the book has a different texture which makes one want to rub their hands on the page.  Am not sure this is a good thing or not but as I sit and turn the pages of the book I feel satisfied it is all turning out okay.

I have used an optical illusion - in three pieces and have written eye quotes and facts on the pages.  The photo doesn't look as interesting as the page close up in real life - there is a lot to see and  read and of course I have yet to add the little extra dangly bits to my pages.

The book is nothing like  I imagined it to be - all the bits and pieces I have gathered with intentions of using are sitting unused bar one piece of handmade paper.  I have just gone with the flow of creativity 'at the 'moment'.  This is a very enjoyable activity!

http://astore.amazon.com/theho0a-20

My Altered Book Project

Another page completed!

I found the word 'fashion' so I decided to revolve my theme around this. Not that I am a fashion plate myself, far from it.  But the quote I used is me to a tee. I painted the page in gesso first and then painted the pages red using acrylic paint. It had to be red - I love RED!

Modge Podge was used  to seal the cut-outs I will be using.

I used a quote by Bill Bliss - When in doubt, wear red.

Altered Book Project

Laugh all you like!  I admit I am no artist. These are the first pages of my book.  The title reads "Good Earth Below!  What is the naughty woman doing to my book? The "naughty" was actually a world from the page - I left it to show. The wrinkles in the page are not so evident now which is pleasing.

These pages are centred around the word riddle.

What am I? MUSIC

My Altered Book Project

What a week it has been!  I glued a few pages together and wasn't happy when I left it to dry and goodness gracious I was not a Happy Jan when I took it out from under the weight and saw this!

What a disaster!  So I do confess, I have been sulking!  I have sulked for a week and am now over it and am moving ahead with a smile on my face because truth be known I probably have more wrinkles on my face than the book and they don't bother me.


So while I was recovering from this little trauma in my life I went on a group ride to a picnic. As luck would have it a nice man called James Mandy took his video camera and filmed the event!  Sixty scooters mostly Vespa, Piaggio  or Gilera combined to make the sound of one Harley and we scooted together through Perth to a picnic spot to celebrate riding scooters.  James has uploaded it to youtube and here is the link.  I am in it twice - once riding past the camera and once walking past some scooters.  I am in jeans and a red shirt in the walking bit and a black and pink scooter jacket in the ride past. Have a peek if you wish to see if there are more wrinkles on me than on this page above! LOL
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlEVW7MA9rw


Back to the book....
So I decided to stitch a few pages together - I had tried this with a few scrap pages but it looked a little too neat and tidy for what I wanted so I went for a more rustic look in the book.  I have used linen thread and a darning needle.  It is going to blend in perfectly with what I have planned for these pages.  So I am quite a lot happier now.

I made a trip to the hardware store today and purchased some Gesso both in black and white. and have applied some black to the first pages leaving exposed one word - naughty!  It reflects how I felt tearing the pages out of the book!  This photo shows how badly wrinkled the page is but this is a warts and all sort of blog so I suppose it fits in nicely. This project is a big learning curve for me!

The pages actually look better now the Gesso has dried so now I am quite excited about moving on to the next bit!

My Altered Book Project

My fingers have been in the glue!  I love gluing things together but this time I am a little worried - I haven't got the result I was expecting. But having said that I don't really know what to expect, I have never seen an altered book other than in photos on the net! I now have my book sitting between some heavy boxes and my fingers are firmly crossed all will be okay when the glue dries.  Good or bad result?  I will have photos tomorrow!

My Altered Book Project

These are the pieces for the first pages - yet to be sealed and of course I haven't written the caption yet. The earth and Mr H are not going to be this close together on the pages - I just put them close together to photograph them. I am also in the process of making a Scarlet letter to represent Hester which will also sit on these first pages.  From the letter I will have a small cord dangling with a pearl bead attached to represent Hester's daughter Pearl. I am in two minds as to whether to paint or tint  the background or leave the print visible.  I think I will sleep on this!  Now I am also hunting down some quotes suitable to the theme of the page - I know what I want as I spotted it when tearing the pages the other day- just need to find it amongst the text.

Now for the observant who have noticed - I have a thread to place between the eyeglass and the ear! Silly me didn't photograph it!

I have been looking for some flat head brads and so far I have been unsuccessful. It would be great if I had time to scoot all over the place looking for them but the scrap booking shops here in Perth are scattered all over the suburbs so I will have to wait until Saturday to resume my hunt.  The good thing about this I will be able to take some photos of my hunting trip to share with you.

Today I bought some linen thread and I am going to stitch some spare pages together tonight to see if they look alright. Nothing on the first pages is going to be too bulky or heavy so the thread should be sufficient. A friend of mine suggested I should try using some jewelery wire - she thought it would look great so am keeping this in mind as well.

Altering books is a bit like playing chess - you have to think about every move!

My Altered Book Project

I have decided against using glue as the only method to fasten the pages of my book together. I used a few of the torn out pages from my book and fastened them with brads to see what it looked like and decided then to use several means of fastening the pages together. If I have anything heavy to go on some pages (which I don't expect I will do) I will glue those pages for a stronger base.  Is it the right decision - I don't know but if it isn't I will learn from it.  The brads I used are a bit fat and I don't have any others so it means a trip to the scrap booking shop to find some flatter ones.  Oh,what a chore this will be!!! LOL

It was a bit hard to work today as I had a lot swirling around in my head - Mr Hawthorne is almost an angel - you will see him tomorrow and I have come up with a couple of other bright ideas for my first page.   Tonight I will endeavour to to do a quick sketch of my idea for my first pages and then decide on the colours and medium to use.

We haven't done much sightseeing yet!  Let's stop the train and have a look at some lovely handmade eco friendly, tree free papers.  These were purchased at a Craft Fair in Perth earlier this year and I hope to use some of them in my Altered Book Project.  They have been handy for cards as all of them have such lovely texture.

Here is just a small sample of my stash!

I love this embossed paper- I have it in several colours and patterns.

The orange selection is lovely.  They can be purchased in packs of colours so all of the colours in the pack go together.  I love them!

It is almost hard to believe it is paper. This has a material like texture.

They also sell beaded ribbons and these little gems.  The papers are made in a little village in India and Halcyon Steppe import them to help their foster child's community to support themselves.  Halcyon Steppe also have an Iris Farm which is open to the public during November when the Iris are in flower. If you want to linger longer before hopping back on the train feel free -http://www.halcyonsteppe.com.au/

See you all tomorrow!

My Altered Book Project - Tearing the Pages!

I have thinned out my book to pave the way for for all the things I'll be adding. I pretty well tore every second page out except for a few where there was an illustration I might use.

Here is the thinned out book - I wonder if I have taken out enough? Only time will tell.

There were illustrations on some of the pages I have removed but I will be keeping the pages and may use some of them in some manner on my pages.

The above illustration reminds me of me - my nose in a book and oblivious to the gongs on around me!  I will definitely be using this.  While typing this I noticed the word in the bottom right hand corner. Now that is a title for a page.  I have no pre- conceived idea of what my book will look like when it has finished, I will draw inspiration from the words and drawings within the book.

I felt guilty tearing away at the pages and had thoughts of the author - Looking down from heaven saying "Good Earth Below! What's that wretch doing to my book!"  I have a portrait sketch of the author Nathaniel Hawthorne and so I am going to transform him into an angel and use a cartoon caption with the above comment. at the front of the book.

There is a need now to think about how I am going to fasten the pages together to give the pages a thicker base.  I have searched the net and gluing seems to be the most popular method although the suggestions of stitching, eyelets and brads sound very appealing. I am leaning towards hand stitching using scarlet thread..
I think I will ponder over this for a day or two.  I will  start transforming Mr Hawthorne while I am pondering.

My Altered Book Project

For some time now I have been thinking of altering a book.  I have scoured the internet looking at altered art projects and Altered Books and doing so has made me all the more determined to get started sooner rather than later..  I first needed to finish my Christmas cards and a couple of other things so I could pack up all the Christmas paper, cards and other festive bits from my workspace. I don't have a lot of room to be creative in and for this reason I favour digi scrapping over paper scrapping but I do love paper and I have found there is a lot of relaxation in sitting painting, gluing, stamping and so forth.

There are no real rules in altering a book, only guidelines and helpful hints from those who have indulged in the Altered Book process.  I don't want my book to fall apart so I have followed the advice I have discovered online and purchased a book with its pages stitched rather than  pages glued together.




I was looking for a book that appealed to me but the ones that appealed were glued and some of the most appealing brought out my feelings of guilt - I was going to rip and tear pages and these books didn't deserve this treatment so they went back on the bookshelf to wait for someone to love them.  The right book was found today in a thrift shop. The text was written in 1850 and has been republished by a company who delight in bombarding their subscribers with sweepstakes opportunities and other free book offers.  The book has a few illustration it and I won't be discarding them from the book and I will find some method of honouring the author even though he has long departed from this world. For all I know he could be hovering around watching me.

So, why blog about my Altered Book?
I thought it might be interesting to record the process from beginning to end and share the journey.  So come along for the ride - my artistic skills are not great so expect some of the journey to be bumpy, some of it to be funny, and no doubt once I get some glue on my fingers pretty damn messy.  The camera is ready, my book is waiting....

Altered Playing Card Christmas Tree Card

I have altered a playing card to make my tree - I didn't sand it back first as I wanted the pattern on the card to show. I used several layers of Modge Podge with starry sparklies and numerous layers of Tombow marker and finished it off with some cord and beads. The base of the tree is a piece of ribbon. Mounted onto 'nook and pantry' paper with pop dots (foam pads) and then mounted using pop dots onto the same type of paper on white cardstock. The "joy" is handwritten in silver metallic ink.  

My Fairy Name LOL

Your fairy is called Fire Rainbowglimmer

She is a fortune bringer.

She lives where fireflies mate and breed.

She is only seen when the sun sets on the day of a completed harvest.

Her dresses glow with fiery colours. She has multicoloured wings like a butterfly.

Get your free fairy name here!

Paverpol Day!

Today was Paverpol Day.  I booked into a workshop with a couple of my work buddies some time ago and after several cancellations due to work commitments we all finally made it there this morning.

For those of you who don't know about Paverpol - it is a textile hardener which protects your artwork - it is weatherproof so is great for garden sculptures.  It can be used with fabric, paper, and other natural textiles.  It does not adhere to plastic.  The product can be coloured and there is a wonderful array of colours to choose from including metallics such as gold and bronze tones.  

In todays workshop we made Standing Garden Sculptures.  The kit is fairly simple - armature wire, alfoil, tape, Paverpol and colouring and  a base with a rod.  Kay, our instructor had a box of fabric offcuts and tshirt fabric for us to pick through for dressing our creations.

Here is my frame with its alfoil covering.  We made boobies and bums with alfoil and placed them in their appropriate spots!

Then we mummified our frames with Paverpol and t shirt fabric. The head is made of alfoil and finished off with a turban. Hair can be added if required - I liked the turban look better.

This was the fun part!  Dressing our sculptures.  It is simply a matter of draping the fabric over the body of the sculpture.  The fabric does its own job, dropping into lovely soft folds.  I have used tshirt fabric, an old crocheted doily and a piece of lace to dress my sculpture.  It will be dry in  twenty four hours and after three weeks my lady be ready to dance amongst the flowers in my garden.

A friend of mine, Audrey is a porcelain artist and teacher who is heavily involved with the Australasian Porcelain Art Teachers(WA Region Inc. This weekend they held an exhibition of works in Fremantle and Audrey invited me along. I have always admired Audrey's art so I knew I would be in for a treat and I wasn't disappointed.

This vase is one of Audrey's many pieces of art. Audrey's work always has a lovely soft feminine feel to it.

The photos below are from other artists.

The above vase was striking!

A lot of work must have gone into this one! It really stood out.

I love elephants and certainly wasn't disappointed in this lovely work.

This is a must have!

The black and white pieces were striking and were from Portugal.

Just sensational!!!!!

Lifelike!

My favourites!

Audrey was telling me the Korean girls arrived at opening night in traditional dress. She said they looked like little dolls - gorgeous. I love their work. Of all the pieces in the exhibit these were the ones I loved the most.

Family Upset!

My brother and his wife have a kayak each. They brought them to a recent family outing and after many questions from me about the possibility of capsizing my brother assured me they would not capsize and added "They are just little bath tubbies!"

Here is my brother eating his words with a mouthful or two of Swan River!

The 'rescue' crew! The water is only waist deep.