Altered Silver

Why are so many people using composition books for their gluebook support?

In USA, composition books are a familiar item most of us have grown up with. They're about 7.5" x 9.75" and usually contain 50 sheets of paper folded in half (for 100 pages), with center-sewn binding and a foldover chipboard cover (typically with a black/white mottled pattern). That seems all well and good for writing on with a ballpoint pen, but the (wide-lined) paper in a composition book is only 14-16# weight. That's extremely thin paper to be expecting it to hold up to the rigors of daily collages.

And yet, there are many people out there using composition books for daily collage and journaling, even applying watercolors, acrylics and a wide assortment of markers and pens. Here's one, and here's one, and here's another, and another and yet another. I tell ya, they seem to be everywhere! (And each one of these links is definitely worth visiting!)

Since so many are doing it, I figured it must be possible, and I acquired three composition books to get myself started.

It was August 28. I only remember because that was the date recorded for my first gluebook entry. I'd decided I'd seen enough and read enough, and now I had my composition book, so I might as well just jump in to glueing: i.e. making a quick daily collage. I paged through a couple magazines, pulling out what seemed right for the time, then I glued those pieces onto the first page, along with the title/price sheet from the new composition book pack. When all the pieces were in place, I looked at the expanse of empty lined paper showing between the bits and decided to add a watercolor wash.

The ultra-thin paper, already feeling cranky after having paper bits glued onto it, became downright ornery with the addition of watercolor.

I looked through a couple more online galleries of composition book journals, elegantly covered with paints and glued bits and markers and just about anything. I turned back to my cantankerous composition book and decided to seal a few page-pairs together with acrylic medium (much as I'd done with the F&W pages) to give the paper added strength. I made three page-pairs and hoped they might settle themselves when dry.

They didn't.

I added pale watercolors using very little water and hoped the touch of color might perk the pages up.

It didn't.

I liked my initial composition, my first "gluebook" collage.
I didn't like the composition book I'd put it in.

This tale will continue in tomorrow's entry.



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