12/25/2005
CofA : Shaping pages
The book had color and pockets, but still needed more form. I intended "Celebration of Angels" to not be a book for sedate reading or simply flipping through its pages, but one to explore more interactively. So I had to do some deconstruction of its neatly trimmed and aligned pages.
A couple recent acquisitions would help out here, so my new Fiskars Paper Edgers scissors and Fiskars border punch were called into play.
Two groups of six pages each were decoratively snipped down to add visual texture and also reduce bulk (even if only a little). (The group shown on the right surrounds the sole removed page of the book; what remains of the removed page is a thin strip that awaits some brilliant tip-in idea.)
I expect this book will contain numerous wings, and what better shape could there be to use for a spread of cutout pages?
I already like the way this spread looks with just the blue color and the texture of the text, but I'm sure there'll be much more to it as the project moves along.
And then, another bit of deconstruction that just had to be part of this project: a window. The peaked arch was cut through two pages, and a piece of acetate was sealed between those pages to act as "glass." I added some gold stars on the acetate for decoration and to partially obscure whatever will be seen through the window from either direction, a tiny peek-a-boo for interest.
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12/13/2005
Project: Celebration of Angels - Color and pockets
For less than $2, as a remainder, I picked up a copy of Celebrities and Their Angels by Pat Montandon. Although some of the material the book contains is attractive and interesting, much of it is less than memorable. I decided to alter this book to hold some of the myriad angel imagery that I've been collecting for many years and re-title it: Celebration of Angels.
Because this is strictly a personal project, I'm incorporating both copyright-free and copyrighted material, starting with the book itself and continuing through images I've gleaned from the internet, magazines, catalogs and other books. In deference to the included artwork, I'll be blurring or otherwise obscuring certain portions of the photos I share here of the project.
The book itself is thin (about 130 pages) and square in shape, about 7" x 7". The first step I took was to add color to the white, semi-glossy pages, using mostly watercolor crayons and also some acrylic paints. When all the pages had color, I sprayed each spread with fixative to ensure that the watercolor wouldn't run and that the acrylic wouldn't stick to itself. The process of coloring and fixing took a little over two weeks to complete.
I only removed one page as I went through the book adding color. What remains of that page is a thin strip on which I plan to attach a tip-in of some kind.
I've also turned several pages into pockets. A couple of them are simple angled pockets as shown here. Others are vertical pockets created by folding a book page over onto itself from the outer edge toward the ditch. When making the pockets, I snipped off most of the portion of the paper that folds into what will be the interior of the pocket, leaving only about a quarter-inch to actually fold over and be glued to its own "inside" (like the hidden hem on a fabric pocket). This provides a neat, folded-edge at the pocket opening, yet eliminates the bulk of the paper that isn't visible anyway after the pocket is sealed.
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10/10/2005
F&W : "Like A Great White Shark"
This was a fun spread to create, using bits and pieces culled from unsolicited commercial advertising correspondence: junk mail.
I began by adhering one of those oh-so-important mailings, trimmed down to fit within the F&W page. Then I used chalks to give color to the spread, picking up the yellow from the junk mail's highlighting, then some blue to work with the blue that additional glued bits were going to bring.
Then I moved right along, adding pieces and incorporating a fold-out page into the spread from a legal-sized junk paper, used in one complete piece. The spread was coming together so fast and enjoyably that I didn't take photos of the process, but there's nothing unique about how it was put together.
This is the finished spread showing the fold-out closed and with the flap turned to show the backside (the part that's adhered to the recto page of the spread). Where one junk item on the left would have the slogan, "like a good neighbor," found text was overlaid so that it now says, "like a great white shark." That seemed appropriate for the voracious attitude behind most junk mail. Additional pieces of junk mail decorate the fold-out, and I had fun using paint, tape and stamps all over the spread.
With the fold-out open, the hidden truth of junk mail is revealed. Definitely a fun spread!
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08/16/2005
Paper Weaving
Started the background of this spread by scribbling sienna and azure chalk in a kind of chevron design, then using a bit of water to blend it all together. This was followed by stamping with blue, brown, white and black inks. After giving the ink time to dry, I made several horizontal slices with an Xacto blade through the recto page in preparation for the weaving.
I had a brownish handmade paper that I'd used chalks on one side to produce a yellow-to-green gradient. I cut this paper vertically into several strips, then wove them through the page slices with the brown side facing this spread. When I was satisfied with the placement of the strips, I applied matte medium across the page to secure the strips into place. After all was dry, I added another stamped image which completed the spread - unless some additional idea emerges later.
This is how the following spread appears when the woven page is turned. You can see the yellow-to-green gradient of the paper strips here, which seemed to fit well with the speckled foam-rollered background which came into being as a paint-saving effort when working on the "Echo" spread. Now it also has the shared weaving. And in the future...something more.
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08/08/2005
Random Acts of Folding
With this entry, I'm establishing new categories for Book-Backgrounds and Book-Manipulations to make entries on those aspects easier to locate. Every now and then, as I'm going along sealing and priming, I fold something. Most of the time, it really is quite random.
This is one of my early acts of folding, which is shown in the process of being decorated. The page-pair that would have been adhered together in this spot would have sealed up this photograph of a bridge in Scotland. I took the page that would have been sealed against the photograph and sealed it against itself instead, by simply folding it in half vertically. When I applied the gesso, I also added a few streaks around the Scotland scene. Later, I covered the three spread pages with some of the painted tissue paper that was shown in my More Deviations entry and applied a thin, light blue glaze over the photograph page.
At one point, I really got into the excitement of fold possibilities, and this spread is one of the more successful results of a spat of folding frenzy (you can see the many unfolds remaining from various experiments). In the end, this spread required four pages and was colored with crayons and chalk. There are four pockets available in the places where the red area touches the yellow areas and where the yellow meets the green. Only time will tell what the pockets might be used for.
This is an awkward photo because it was taken in the middle of a step and doesn't really show the construction of this spread. The paper clip is holding the two inner pages upright so that the just-applied glaze on the outer pages can dry in peace. The two inner pages are going to be forming pockets on the outer pages. It'll look a whole lot more interesting when I can show that step...
Another result of my folding frenzy period, this one uses 8 pages, and it was constructed toward the back of one of the F&Ws because I needed raw pages (those that hadn't yet been sealed or primed). I have no idea yet what will come of this spread (which is at this point only held together by the folds). There might be paint although I kinda like the pig pictures. There might be pockets...heck, it could end up with 16 pockets!
This is a rich-looking spread for which the photo does no justice. It uses 6 pages and contains four pockets (all in the upper sections). Mindlessly, I actually painted the pockets closed and had to reopen them carefully with the aid of a toothpick.
Here's a simple spread using 3 pages, the middle one of which is cut as well as folded (so it contributes less bulk). The paper is gift-wrapping paper which was much sturdier than I expected it to be. I achieved a close match to the wrapping paper for the back page by mixing burnt sienna and yellow ochre with a wee bit of titanium white on the page itself. The vague plan for this spread is to cover most of the paper with an assortment of stuff and to include extractable items in the single (obvious) pocket.
More to come.
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