Altered Books

Several weeks ago, the Wednesday class's started making altered books. The techniques we have followed are from the book 'Altered Books Workshop' by Bev Brazelton. Two other books on this subject I recommend are 'Altered Book Collage' by Barbara Matthiessen and the first book I bought on altered art 'Altered Book, Collaborative Journals and Other Adventures in Bookmaking by Holly Harrison. One of the students asked what I thought was the best glue to use in the book got me thinking so I started another altered book, I have included photo's of this book, it is a technique so have not gone for a theme but concentrated only on techniques and these I will share with you. The book needs to have sewn signatures (a group of pages sewn together not glued, if you open the middle of a signature you will see the thread sewing it together). Do not use a book that is to old (I would recommend less than 80 years old) as when a book is to old the pages have become very brittle and fragile, when you fold or bend them even after painting or maybe more so, they break and crack. I sampled three methods of glueing, PVA I found was too wet and caused the pages to wrinkle badly. gel medium soaked into the paper and was also too wet causeing wrinkles and the edges of the pages didnt glue down well. The medium I preferred was Golden Clear Tar Gel it spread easily and was nice and tacky.Golden does recommend this medium for use as a glue. Great also for gluing down paper collage.

You will see my pencil marks where I have left notes for myself on which method I have used to glue pages together or colours I have used. Throughout this book I am only tinting my Golden white gesso with the smallest drops of Golden fluid colours. The reason I have done this is because I personally love the colour of old aged paper and I wanted to emulate that colour. I found this method gave me those lovely soft aged colours and a matte finish. I really like this technique of designing with words. Before painting pages, with a pencil, draw blocks around certain words to make a message (ie on right side 'the lady's - face was oval - her - gown - provocative - beauty ) on the left (monsier, - the most adorable creature - lingering, - with - hope - met his eyes at last ) then paint all the page except the blocked words. When paint is dry use a black pen to block around the words then link them up with straight lines as in this instance, can be shaped lines, dotted lines etc. This class was a lot of fun as one of the students had quite a suggestive novel. Will be interesting to see what she came up with out of that text. I love how the words just pop out of the page. The fluid colour add is Golden Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide, almost perfect reproduction of old paper colour.

Image transfers, the one on right page is Golden Soft gel matte and image on transparency. On the left Golden Regular gel matte and image on paper printed on inkjet printer. For gel medium transfers I have a sheet on our website http://www.artisticjourney.com.au/ that you can download.

Adding tags technique the stamping on the background is some stamps I cut out of a kneeling garden mat I bought from a hardware shop, its about 1 inch thick which is good to hold when stamping. It has a imprinted pattern on it which I think makes a nice pattern. The fluid I used in the gesso for these two pages was Golden Burnt Umber which gave a pink brown colour.

Cutting windows, the images are my own photo's.

I did say that this book was a sample did'nt I? Of course you cant see the eifel tower from a window in Venice, what can I say.
Cutting Doorways, the colours used adding to gesso are Golden Raw Sienna and then adding Golden Cobalt Turquoise and sponged on with a sea sponge.Through the open doors. Don't you think this image of a sculpture is awesome, cannot remember where I was it, possibly Germany, I saw some amazing art there.Finally the pop out technique. Images of gargoyles at Notre Dame and my attempt at drawing the church in the background using a black and white Portfolio crayons which I sealed with Krylon spray sealer so that the crayons didnt smudge or transfer. Next week we will be doing a page background and possibly hanging embellishments if time allows. I will post these when we get a few more pages done.