Altered Book
Here is another page I have been working and fussing with in my altered book. When I think a page is complete, I find that I go back and add something else to it. I love how you get a peek at the next page, and in this case, the previous page. If you want see one of the masters of altering books, click on Patty’s website: River Bend Ranch (over on the right under creative places to visit).
Art Journal – No Words Can Say
I must say that my first six days back in the classroom have been fun and interesting. I finished this page tonight. I had started it several days ago and I hadn’t felt like working on anything until tonight. This page began with a coat of black gesso…I’ve never worked with it before. Going from dark to light was a challenge for me. I used Caran d’Ache crayons along with the collage papers. Do you recognize the inside of security envelopes I used around the face? The face could have been a little smoother but I couldn’t get the effect I wanted without totally wiping out everything, so I just left it. No words can say how tired I am tonight.
Small Cereal Box Journal
I already had these pages finished before I started back to school. I planned to write on the pages but decided to go ahead to post it without any words. The eyes just appeared on the first page. I started both pages with a collage of painted phone book pages and then added more acrylic paint over that. I think the face looks sort of like a dog…what do you think? The pages are larger here than they are in person.
Small Cereal Box Journal
Here is the second spread in the smaller cereal box journal I made. I like the smaller size of this book. I completely collaged the pages and went over them with white acrylic paint. I went with the shapes that appeared on the pages using other colors of paints. Last of all, I added more color using water soluble crayons (Caran d’Ache). I have written about them fore….I love them!!! Dick Blick sells the crayons individually if you want to try a few without having to purchase an entire set. The name of them are Neocolor II, water-soluble wax pastels made by Caran d’Ache . Do any of you other artists love them too??? A note in closing, I may not be able to post as often as I have because I have taken a temporary job at my old school filling in for a Kindergarten teacher who is on maternity leave. I’m starting tomorrow…it should be a fun experience!
Altered Book – Final Clue
I have been busy painting on phone book pages to use in upcoming collages and also prepping pages in my teeny tiny cereal box journal. That makes very little time for painting or collaging.
Today, at our famous “made in china” store, I was going up and down the isles of paper notebooks and other school supplies, and the composition books caught my eye. I had to buy one and the price was right. That’s all I used to use when I first started doing collage. If you try gluing two or three pages together, you will have a sturdy base for collage.
Here is another page from my altered book. My altered book doesn’t really have a theme but I’m thinking the title of it will be: Final Clue. I do not have enough ephemera that is the same subject or era so I’m using pictures from magazines or whatever I can find. I think this page needs something else and when I find it, I will add it to the page. If you want more information about altered books, click on the River Bend Ranch link over on the right. I also wrote about the online class in two earlier posts.
Collage – Floral Attitude
This piece stars my favorite phone book pages again. I used acrylic paints on the background. I love Ultramarine Blue! I used white India Ink to draw in the flowers and squiggles. The large flower on the lower right was stamped on with white acrylic paint. At that point, I wasn’t happy with it so I covered some of that with black paint mixed with the colors I used on the background. After that, I then used Caran d’Ache crayons and blended that in with my fingers. I used more paint and finished with light touches of white acrylic paint.
Collage – Rosy Allure
Yesterday, I took some time off from working on the altered book. In this collage, I used pieces of my painted graffiti-like phone book pages and a girl that I drew. You can look on the July 26th post and see how I changed her. These pieces were collaged onto a painted background that ended up being almost covered with collage. I used Liquitex Soft Body Paints. I only ordered the three primary colors plus black and white, so I had to mix the colors. I was able to mix several different shades of pink by doing that.
Altered Book
I am taking the online Fantasy Folded Altered Book class. The class is being offered by Patty at River Bend Ranch website. If you are interested in learning more about the class, you can click on the River Bend Ranch link over on the right. Once you get there, the information about it is on the upper left hand corner of her website. It will be available until the last of September. It’s only eighteen dollars.
I am obsessed with working on my book the past few days and that’s why I haven’t posted anything new. Below is a page from my book. The studious looking girl with the playful cat is from an Ideals magazine. She was part of a painting. I wish I had saved the information so I could tell you about the painting and the artist’s name. The book I am altering is The Cokesbury Shower Book from the 1950’s. How times have changed. Here is a clipping from the original book and then the page I have altered.
Cereal Box Journal
This is the first page in my new cereal box journal. It’s really small, each page measures about four inches by four inches. I tried out some new acrylic paint…it’s Liquitex Soft Body Paint. I think it is their answer to the more expensive fluid acrylics that Golden paints make. Next time I plan to glue some tissue paper over the page first before painting and try for more texture.
Cereal Box Journal – (10)
This is the last page of the first cereal box journal I made. It is fun recycling old boxes into journals. I also save cake mix, tissue, cracker and tea boxes, to name a few possibilities. A few days ago, I saw another cereal box journal put together with duct tape. I didn’t save the website and I can not find it again Have you seen all the different colors of duct tape now? Purple…red….green…they have all the colors. I have been sewing mine together on the sewing machine but duct tape will simplify things.
On this page, I used junk mail, magazine pieces and snippets of my own doodling. I love these shades of blue.
