Altered Silver

When I got my first set of watercolor crayons (Lyra Aquacolor), I decorated quite a few spreads in the F&Ws as I experimented with the possibilities of the medium.

This one shows how delicate the colors can be. Just scribble on a bit of crayon, then brush out the pigment with water. I repeated the steps in various places to build up the color a little stronger.

 
For this spread, I scribbled on crayon and spread the pigment out with a wet brush. Then I scribbled on some more crayon and instead of using a brush, I grabbed a spray-bottle of water. The spread was sprayed a little here, a little there, a little more over there...until I noticed there was too much water dripping into the gutter of the book! I stuck the fold of a paper towel into the gutter to soak up the water there, then sat the book vertically to drain and dry. The result: very cool! It still kind of looks wet, long after it has dried. because of the smears and streaks of the paint. I was glad I'd used cool hues for this one.

Here's another spread that turned out rather nicely:

 
Upon the prepared gesso base, I just scribbled some colors down with the crayons. I had no particular design in mind, and I only chose these hues because I hadn't used them yet in my prior experiments. Then I went over the pages with a wet brush, releasing the magical watercolor aspects of the crayons. Definitely cool indeed!

But this became even cooler yet. Instead of stopping when the spread was dry, I added more of the same colors with the crayons, just as I'd done the first time. Then the wet brush was applied again. Then I kinda did it again, and again. The additional pigment moved differently the second, third and fourth times around, thicker and more palpable. I repeated the steps a few more times. The blending of the hues was simply delightful, and the colors began to glow with intensity.

I don't know if anything more will come of these spreads as I now consider the F&Ws to have been an excellent springboard for me, but with no particular need to "complete" them any further. They still hold some great treasures, and there are some interesting stories from their pages yet to come.




Keywords: art,altered book,watercolor crayon

I looked at the piles of tiny collage pieces I'd made and decided to give some of them something to do. I picked out eight of the most Hallowe'en-themed, then set about putting together a small ATC series.

Some bright orange cardstock made an ideal base on which to start. Onto that, I printed two sets (four cards each) of writing; one was old German book text, the other old French handwriting. After cutting out the cards, I colored the borders with crayons and pencils, then edged the sides with black marker. I had some small scraps of black handmade paper with silver threads sewn onto it, so I snipped the scraps into smaller scraps to place on the cards, making sure each card also received some of the silver threads. Then one of the tiny Hallowe'en collage pieces was added to each card.

I had expected the cards to be done at that point, but something seemed to be missing. A rubber stamp would've been good, to break up the emptiness of the black scraps, but I didn't have any stamp that seemed fitting for a Hallowe'en theme. Therefore, I needed to make one.

I picked out a hunk of leftover rubber (from trimming unmounted stamps) and traced around it in my doodle sketchbook to create a "template area" to work in. In that area, I drew a simple skull shape. Then I re-drew the drawing onto the rubber scrap and used kai scissors and an Xacto knife to cut it. Then I stamped it onto black paper using white ink to see how it turned out. Perfect!


My new stamp completed the cards quite nicely. This little series was a great way to put those tiny collage pieces to work!




(My ATCs are not available for trade at this time.)
Technorati Tags: atc/atcs, artist trading cards, collage, mixed media, rubber stamps

I began with several bits of handmade papers, tissue paper and some text pages. I used two (8.5x11") 20# pages for the supports. After choosing a color scheme (purple and yellow), I watercolored those colors over the text pages (so that some of the text was now on purple, and some was on yellow).

Then I tore up all the gathered materials into smaller bits and used matte medium to adhere all the bits onto the supports, ending up with some kind of "crazy quilt" thing.

After the pages had some time to dry, I coated them with a glaze of purple which did a great job in unifying all the diverse tones and shades. (The "quilt" was not so "crazy" any longer.)

When the pages were completely dried, I rubber-stamped them using a scrollwork design and Versamark (clear watermark) ink. The Versamark ink dries very slowly, giving plenty of time to do something over it. In this case, I used PearlEx powders with a soft brush over the stamping. The ultrafine mica powder is caught in the stickiness of the Versamark and held there, while it easily brushes away from other areas. For the PearlEx, I used an interference purple on one page and a gold on the other.

If you've already worked with PearlEx, this'll make sense okay. If you haven't, I hope the photo gives you some idea of how very cool these powders are, especially when used with the Versamark ink and rubber stamps. It's not at all messy the way glitter can be, but it gives an easy metallic sense of glittery opalescence.

All done, the pages were sprayed with fixative and they're ready to be used for however they might be useful in times to come. Maybe they'll be cut up to be used for tags or ATC backgrounds or funky borders in an altered book spread or...well, time will tell.



Technorati Tags: collage, paper arts, mixed media

The background on this is a blending of a music sheet scan with a part of a digital fanart I made earlier in the year (of Amber Tamblyn from "Joan of Arcadia").

Today's page is something of a celebration of a new toy and tool: an all-in-one printer/scanner/copier/fax. One of the first things I did after making this background was to scan all my posted ATCs and update the images for them in this blog. I haven't had much luck with printers and scanners in the past; seems like every time I had both, one would break down and the other would be inefficient. While it lasts, though, these are very fun tools to have!




Technorati Tags: altered books, art journals, collage, mixed media, gluebooks

The sticker in the middle came off one of the new toys I got today, a square paper punch. And as you can see, it was put to use quite liberally to create this page.

Technorati Tags: altered books, art journals, collage, mixed media, gluebooks

FINALLY! At long last, the local library held their annual book sale. I only had about an hour since I had to cram the time in between a bunch of other things, but I made good use of the time I had. I picked up hardback books of various sizes that begged to be altered and others (hardback and paperback) that wanted to donate text and pictures to the cause.

If I'd had more time available, I would have bought even more. Or, if I'd just reached and grabbed, I would've bought more. As it was, I first flipped through each book that caught my eye, with definite ideas about whether it would be a book to alter or one to deconstruct. If I couldn't think of even one "maybe" use for it, I put it back on the table.

Flyers posted around the room announced that hardbacks were $1.00 and paperbacks were $.50. The total of my sale came to a mere $20.50, and I exited with two sacks of happy books both large and small (I'd brought my own paper bags for carrying the goodies.) The condition of the books range from clearly used (children's items and mass-market paperbacks) to excellent (nearly everything else).

I don't think there's any way for an altered artist to lose when attending a library book sale. The enormous stack of books I acquired will absolutely keep me busy for many months to come...maybe even until the 2006 sale!

Less than a day after writing about my Angels & Aliens project, the Pentech GelGrip pen I was using for the sketching ran out of ink while on duty. To finish the drawing, I grabbed the Penstix micron pen that I'm using in my altered text book (which I haven't described here yet), but the micron gives an entirely different writing experience. It's more of a "final lines" kind of pen, not really for "sketching."

So, while I managed to finish this particular spread with the micron, it really is not at all suitable for drawing. With any luck, I'll find a suitable replacement soon, perhaps as early as tomorrow. I don't think Pentech makes this particular type anymore (I'd bought it many years ago), but maybe there'll be something similar.

It's just so sad to have the demise of a worthy pen. At least its final gasps went to a good cause: my art. ;)


[edit 10/30/05]: A new pen has come to my rescue. It's a Bic Smoothie retractable. They call it a "ball pen" (not a ballpoint), and it writes like a rollerball. Feels good to use and happily doesn't bleed through the A&A paper. :)




Technorati Tags: altered books, art journals, pens

I just came across this little toy, by way of Meggiecat's blog archive. It's a little software goodie (for Windows) called Quiltmaker that is designed for "sketching" a quilt design. Check out the details and download your free copy at the Quiltmaker website. While I'm sure it comes in handy for those interested in making quilts, I can't help but think of all its other possible applications. You could play with making GraphArt, for instance, before touching a piece of graph paper. Maybe design page backgrounds to print out, test out color combinations for a collage, or stick with black & white and make rubber stamp designs.


Technorati Tags: altered books, art journals, collage, paper arts, paper crafts, mixed media

I was embarking on a new project, to make a quick, daily collage in the spirit of a "gesture drawing." I wanted to keep all these collages together in the same spot, but after putting the first collage into a composition book, I discovered that the composition book just wasn't going to work out for me. Others seem to be having good results with them, but I simply couldn't accept the too-thin paper as a support for glue and pencil and paint and whatever else might be needed.

I looked around and selected an old hardback book I'd recently acquired in a book exhange. It's about collecting postage stamps as an investment practice and was published in the early 50's, so it's quite old and out-of-date. The previous owner had generously marked most of the pages with some kind of black pencil or crayon, to highlight certain paragraphs and statements. I decided to leave those be and just accept them as "lovemarks." The cover and pages still seemed to be in pretty decent shape, however. Very carefully, I removed my paper bits from my first collage in the composition book. I'd used glue stick for adhering them, so they came up relatively easily.

I transferred the bits into the stamp-collecting book, retaining the same arrangement, but needing to compress their positions somewhat to adjust for the smaller dimensions of the page. I had used watercolor over the initial glueing, so the pieces had some strange colors on them. I didn't want to attempt using watercolor in the stamp-collecting book, so I used colored pencil as a substitute. And voilà, my first "gluebook" collage was in its new home.

What can one actually do with a composition book? I've got three of them now, and it seems like they should be good for something, right?

I decided to paint this one. The cover, that is.


I sponged on individual layers of sienna, yellow ochre and dioxazine purple. Finally, I sponged on clear iridescent medium to give portions a bit of shine (if I followed these steps again, I'd apply the iridescent medium with a brush to keep it more consistent, although it is less metallic-like than it looks in this photo). Then I added a paper bit on one side so that it would be obvious which end was "front." The uninspired scrap I grabbed for this purpose is a multicolored happy-face that says, "There's always something new."

I must say, this composition book looks very enticing now, less utilitarian and more inviting, like it's just asking to play a role in "something special."

But currently, I'm only using its pages as undersheets (to catch stray glue streaks) when glueing my daily bits.




Technorati Tags: altered books, art journals, collage, mixed media, gluebooks, composition books

August already, and I haven't made any entry since July 27. Well, it doesn't mean I haven't been working, in fact I've been quite active with the art (and purchasing additional supplies for it). The days have been very busy, even when the heat rose to nearly 100(F) degrees. I've been painting, folding, pasting, sealing, priming, deviating, experimenting...and trying to remember to take photos all along the way. They'll all show up here at some point.

Cutting Rubber
I also spent a few hours each day for about 4 days applying mounting cushion to rubber, then cutting out the stamps of the rubber. Back in time unmounted stamps would've been laughed at, but today, they're at least half the market. The disadvantage: you can't really use them until you get them mounted first, either to foam or cushion or wood or something, and that means buying extra materials and cutting them out yourself. The advantage: storing and organizing them is as simple as a three-ring binder, plus the unmounted stamps are generally half the price of the mounted versions.

Sentence Clipping
Another interesting activity: I've been going through a book I decided was worth sacrificing (since it's glue-bound and paperback) and snipping out interesting paragraphs, sentences and phrases that seem to stand on their own. I get a kick out of reading these clippings completely out of their original context. (Example:In fact, they're still appearing all over the place. Doesn't that just spark ideas? Who or what has been appearing all over? Are they friendly or threatening?) As I clipped, I put the clippings into a small box to keep them together, but I realized it was going to be very difficult to find any particular one when it came time to use them. I needed to store these somehow in such a way that it would be easy to review them plus easy to pick one out as needed.

I found the solution in a stack of stuff on the corner of my work table. It's one of those "magnetic" photo albums (which aren't any good for keeping photos). It had been sitting there for many years, totally ignored, waiting to be noticed at just the right time. I added the clippings into it and presto, I can see all the clippings at a glance, and picking one out to use simply involves pulling up the plastic oversheet and removing the clip.

Good to know those "magnetic" photo albums are good for something after all.