Altered Silver

In short, a gluebook is whatever you want it to be. Helpful, eh? ;) Generally the term refers to a series of collages that is built up over time (normally on a regular, ongoing basis) and typically involves modern ephemera. Gluebooks are often of mixed media and difficult to generalize because each artist's style is different, but they almost always involve some kind of gluing, hence the name.

What's it for?
A gluebook is for loosening up, for bypassing your inner critic and building a quick body of work without stress, for expressing raw emotion without having to explain or justify it, for "gesture drawing" without drawing. A gluebook can be used as a "practice run" for future projects (such as altered book pages) or as a kind of "sketchbook" (with or without sketching) to just play with shapes, forms, colors. It can be used as an art journal (with or without art or journaling). You can draw into it, write, paint or cut up the pages. What emerges from a gluebook as you play is sometimes enigmatic and sometimes revealing. There are no rules to a gluebook except the ones you establish for your own.

What kind of "glue" is used?
Your adhesive can be gluestick, white glue, acrylic medium, masking tape, duct tape, brads, staples, paper clips...whatever you feel like using that succeeds in adhering your items together in the way that you want them adhered.

What kind of "book" is it?
The substrate for your gluebook can be a notebook, looseleaf papers to bind later, a sketchbook, a lined journal or composition book. It can have blank pages or text-filled pages. It can be ringbound, stitched, spiralbound, stapled or handbound, hardback or paperback etc. It can even be made of playing cards, flash cards, index cards or greeting cards. Whatever works for you is going to be the right choice.

What kind of time goes into a gluebook?
The gluebook ideal is to spend very little time at all. Perhaps 15-20 minutes for a page. Can't work that fast? Take an hour then, or two, as you like. There are no rules, so you can spend all day building your gluebook page if you want. The faster you work, the less likely you are to fuss with planning, agonizing over details, worrying about some fiction of "perfection." If there is too much focus on the fussing, agonizing and "perfection" ideas, the benefits of a gluebook are greatly lessened. A gluebook is about effortlessly playing, not about seriously toiling.

How often is it done?
For myself, I glue daily, setting aside that time each day just for gluing. You might glue every day, or every-other day, or once a week or perhaps pick two weekends a month just to glue. It's your book, your activity, your choice.

What gets glued?
Typical gluebook materials derive from ordinary ephemera, either vintage or modern. Magazines, newspapers, cheap books and junk mail are just a few sources from which this ephemera can be gleaned. Generally, any material that can be glued down is a potential source of gluebook fodder, so just reach for whatever you have nearby.

What kind of "art" goes into a gluebook?
Any kind at all, even none at all. Some page might be very elaborately arranged while another has a single snippet of text. Neither complexity nor clarity are required. Maybe one day all you feel like doing is splotching down a streak of yellow paint, overlaying it with a strip of masking tape and adding a snip of found text. If it's satisfying for you in that moment at that point of time, then the page is successfully completed.

The best part of gluebooking is that absence of pressure — doesn't matter if you make something really cool on your page or really bland. It doesn't matter if it seems like "art" or not. What matters is putting the page together. Gluebooking on a regular basis keeps your creative juices flowing, even during those periods you "don't have time" to be creative. Surprise yourself!

What other kinds of media go into a gluebook?
Huh? More than one art medium? In a GLUEbook?? Absolutely YES! Don't get hung up on the "glue" portion of the term. I've noticed that many people erroneously get the idea that a gluebook must involve only glue. Of course using "only glue" is fine if that's what you want for your book, but it's mistaken to think that's the "correct" or "only" way. Gluebooks delight in mixed media. Break out your watercolors and inks and marker pens and crayons and whatever else you enjoy working with. Write, stamp, paint as you feel moved.

Something will probably be glued; that's the whole basis of a gluebook's definition. Beyond that, anything goes!


No one else can live my life, tell my story, or make any of my gluebook pages. (GailNHB)

Glue views and communities —
View some extraordinary gluebooks on the web:
THS Design Hieropenen Flumig.net Keri Smith	Blow Your Mind Unit Sicks Cat Sidh Ophelia Chong

There are at least two active Yahoogroups dedicated to gluebooking: [gluebooks] and [gluebots]. These lists offer daily prompts, gluing challenges, viewing the gluepages of others, sharing of thoughts and ideas, etc.

Be sure to also see Lisa Vollrath's Discovering Gluebooks article.

Back in July, Jen Minnis posted (in the AlteredBooks Yahoo group) a link to her "Faceless" spread with a description of how she'd applied gesso over an outlined magazine image to achieve the interesting effect. It sounded like a cool technique to try out, so I searched a few magazines and catalogs until I found a picture of a lady who seemed like she might be lost in a personal reverie rather than just modeling a shirt (and she was a good size for the F&W).


Loosely following Jen's example, I covered a spread with a splash of colors, leaning toward pink to coordinate with the lady's pink shirt. I cut out the magazine model along its edges, then drew over it with a Sharpie. (Although Jen experienced problems with the gesso causing Sharpie lines to smear, I didn't have that problem.)


I adhered the magazine image to the spread (trimming the lady's head to fit the page), then coated it with a thin layer of gesso, streaking it outward in the same manner of which the background had been done. In this, I deviated from the steps Jen took; she described applying the gesso with a small brush, staying within the drawn lines. Me, I just used a wide brush over the whole everything because I wanted more of a spontaneous, loose, streaked appearance in the gesso.

Because of that deviation, I also had to include an additional step of re-marking the outlines after the gesso had dried.

This photo shows how it ended up for me.

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Deciding I really didn't want such an emphasis on pink, I covered the spread with a yellow glaze. When that was dry, I began marking lines following the background streaking, and tossed in some basic lettering to start (still using the Sharpie).


To tone the colors down further and give them more depth, I applied a blue glaze, which turned everything green being applied over the previous yellow. Then, having a bit of fun with the splendid variety of colors that were emerging through the glazes, I used chalks in various areas of the background streak areas to emphasize and accentuate the array of colors.

That play was followed by another blue glaze, to alter the hues even further. When dry, I brought the spread to my computer, with all my gel pens. I ran a search on Google for "dream," and filled the background streak areas with quotations and phrases containing references to dream or dreams or dreaming, references that appeared in the search results. I scribbled them onto the background with a variety of gel pen colors, opaque and metallic.


Here's a closer view of the finished recto page. Some of the outlined streak areas contain a single quote or phrase while others hold two or even three. Each phrase was written in its own color, and the colors were selected at random. (Some of them show up better than others.)



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

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

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.



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

When I first started seeing things called "gluebooks" in web galleries, I didn't have a very high opinion of them. I saw standard composition books used as a place to glue daily ephemera. Got some junk mail that day? Glue it into the composition book. Went shopping? Glue your receipt. Emptied an office product? Glue down the box cover. Snacked on a candy bar? Glue the wrapper. Prepared ground beef for dinner? Glue down the meat weight label. Etcetera ad infinitum ho hum...

What's the point of that???

I decided I wasn't interested in them, yet it seemed that once gluebooks had entered the realm of my awareness, I began to see more and more of them without looking for them. And although most were of the glue-down-the-daily-ephemera variety, there were some standouts, collages being called "gluebooks" that actually approached a level worthy of being called "art" (such as nearly all of this entire website). I started being more intrigued, but still didn't "get" what gluebooks are about. If it's just about gluing down daily ephemera...uh, why do that? And if it's about building art collages in composition books, why not call them "art collage books"?

I began searching "gluebooks" on Google, viewing as many galleries as I could find. I also began seeing less of the glue-down-the-daily-ephemera type and growing more intrigued. At last, I came upon Lisa Vollrath's Gluebooks and Journals gallery and that led me to her Discovering Gluebooks article, her Throw-Away Collage article and Throw-Away Collage gallery. One of Lisa's links led me further on to Jane Dickinson's Throw-Away Collage-A-Day Journal page, which also provided me with the answer to my most pressing question: "Treat this as a gesture 'drawing'," Jane had written on her website, "knowing every one won't be a masterpiece, but it's a great way to loosen up."  Eureka! Jane's statement spoke to me in the art terminology I was familiar with. Gluebooks then, were a paper arts version of a gesture drawing! All that clicking you hear is the gluebook imagery puzzles I'd seen falling into place for me at last.

With this resonating definition, the urge to join in followed quickly. To simply make a quick "gesture drawing" (albeit in collage) without trying to "make art" as such, and to do it daily, a "gluebook" becomes an exercise in familiarizing oneself with one's tools and methods as well as assisting in building a (relatively quick) body of work. As I've recently been slowing down on my F&W work, unsure of what I want to "immortalize" on all those book pages, the "gluebook" or quick daily collage, seemed an ideal way for me to attain more finished bookwork without agonizing over what it should become or how to get there.

My initial gluebook pages can be viewed in this August 2005 BlogSpirit album. I tried to also make albums for September and October, but BlogSpirit is bogging down too much with photos. However, all the gluebook entries can be found by selecting the "Gluebook/DailyCollage" category on the left column.

[edit 10/9/05]: BlogSpirit is feeling well enough again that I was able to upload both September and October gluebooks to photo albums (found in the righthand column). If the albums stop working for any reason, the tip for using the Categories works well regardless.




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

Naturally I had scissors already. Good Fiskars. They cut a straight line reliably every time. But what if you don't want to cut a straight line? There's a bunch of cool alternatives on the market these days, lots of fancy deco scissors, short for "decorative"; they don't cut a straight line. They cut scallops or ripples or squiggles. Cool stuff with a lot of potential. So I wanted to get some fancy scissors. And I did, I used them on my first project, and they injured me.

No, I didn't cut myself, but I had balked at the prices of $5-$11 for each pair of deco scissors, knowing I wanted to get several of the fancy cutting designs. So I shopped around and found the cheapest scissors. The brand is ProvoCraft, and I found them for $.99@. What a deal, huh? I bought nine of them to start, assuming I'd buy more of them later. I put them to use immediately, for cutting 160 short (1.5" - 3") snips, giving 40 paper rectangles a kind of fancy edge border. I expected this task to be fun, but it became painful and more harmful than I realized at the time.

First off, they performed miserably. The initial bit of a snip would cut properly, then the remainder would simply be chewed by the blades, requiring the use of those trusty Fiskars to cut the chewed parts properly. In my research, I'd taken note of tips from deco scissors users; they advise cutting into aluminum foil to help sharpen the blades and cutting into wax paper if the blades don't work smoothly enough. So I took the advice and cut through aluminum foil and wax paper, several snips and snips and snips. Back to the paper (which was only a single layer of 20#), it was still disastrous. This "simple" plan to cut a pretty little border on these bits of paper turned into a massive and aggravating chore.

Additionally, the handles of these fancy scissors are extremely thin, apparently to help keep the cost of production lower. Yeah, you get what you pay for. Because the handles are so thin and the scissors required so much exertion on my part to get them to come close to doing their job, I ended up pinching a nerve in the lower base of my thumb which deprived my thumb-tip of sensation. I didn't realize the extent of the damage until after the task was as good as I could make it. By then, I was already making plans to replace these ProvoCraft pieces of junk with a set of Armada or even Fiskars.

Feeling slowly returned to my thumb, but it took four days before the thumb felt vaguely "normal" again and even now, over a week later, the healing isn't fully complete. Don't waste your money (or risk your hand) to the ProvoCraft "Paper Shapers"/edgers deco scissors.

Sure I had paper at home already, but most of it is white and some is even covered with blue lines. Plus I had a few newspapers and magazines. There is potential in all of these (view Aisling's pages), but it depends on what direction you want to take in the artwork. I enjoy color, and although I had colored paper on hand already, all of it was of the solid tone variety in 20# stock. (That's like the paper used for flyers or newsletters, and none of it is archival quality.) I yearned for some variety.

One definite desire was for a hefty supply of tissue paper. That's the colorful stuff used often in crafts for making large paper flowers or decorating piñatas. It is excellent for collage work as it comes in a vast range of colors or designs and is translucent when glued.

Another desire was for some fancier papers, like rice papers, lace, handmade, something with variations of color tones and perhaps texture. Because these papers are heavier than tissue paper (anywhere from 16# to 80#), I knew I didn't need a large amount, but I did want a nice variety to work with. And I can happily tell you the answer to my need was found in collections called "Paper by the Pound" and "Sensational Scraps"; they are assortment collections of smaller sheets. Perfect for what I wanted.

Searching around the studio, I discovered I still had a rip collection of objects, pictures, words, colors and textures torn from magazines which I had collected many years previously. They were still here, in a hanging-folder bucket-style heavy plastic file with a handle on top. I appreciated the excellent storage system chosen by my earlier self, and I was surprised to find the file much fuller than I remembered it. This was a wonderful prepared set of materials to have on hand.

One caution I'd offer to anyone brand-new to collage or altered work these days: when looking for paper, avoid the scrapbooking section of crafts stores. There is a myriad of enticing paper designs offered for use in scrapbooking: colors, designs and textures that are very attractive and appealing. BUT:
- Scrapbooking paper doesn't really have a texture (with the exception of some machine-embossed designs or corrugated board). Any perceived texture is only part of the appearance, a trompe l'oeil. The paper itself is completely smooth, like a hot press surface.
- The design or texture of scrapbooking paper is printed on the paper which is single-sided. The backside is plain white, or printed with the maker's logo/info. (And in the case of pastel colored paper, that logo/info can be seen through the paper.)
- Scrapbooking paper typically comes in 6x6", 8.5x11" and 12x12" sheets. Yes, those dimensions are mere inches. Each single sheet is extravagently priced at an average of $.85 (USD)!
- Scrapbooking paper is uniformly heavyweight (excepting vellum and a few rare specialty papers). The most lighweight sheet I've seen was about 25#; most of them weigh in at 65# or 70#.

So, save your money and get your paper from a legitimate art supplies dealer. Your $.85 will go a lot further, and you'll have more cash remaining for other items.

What supplies does a person need to work in collage? Only a few common items; it couldn't be a simpler artform:

Paper
Scissors
Adhesive

That's it, that's all one needs, which can be found in just about every home, and some very impressive collage work can be made with them such as what Aisling has on display.

So why the need for shopping? Well, once you've established the essential needs, it can get a little complicated after that, depending on what you're planning to do. My initial list looked like this:
books: Of course I had plenty of books around, but they were for reading or reference. The books I needed would become my new canvases to work on, so I needed some books in good condition that no one cared about as books anymore.
handmade paper: I love paper, the appearance, the texture, the feel, the aroma. It would be a pleasure to shop for.
tissue paper: Tissue paper comes in a vast range of colors and even patterns. It's a translucent paper with enormous potential for many effects.
glue sticks: Glue sticks are only for temporary convenience while planning a composition. On the plus side, they have very little water content (the less water added to a book, the better). On the minus side, whatever you stick together with them will not remain stuck for more than a couple years.
fancy scissors: Decorative edge shapers can be found all over these days. All I had was pinking shears, so I thought it would be fun to have a fancy set.
paper punches: Many years ago, I picked up three of these to punch tiny little hearts, stars and butterflies. During subsequent years, the market and production has grown immensely. These days, one can get tabletop or handheld die-cut punches in almost any shape and size. I remember them as having been kind of fun, so I added these to my list to check into.
templates/stencils: I already have a large selection of templates, mostly alphabets, but templates are just plain fun and can be versatile as well. I added them to my list because, heck, you never know when you might come across something especially interesting.
markers: Nothing fancy here, just in need of a good set of basic watercolor markers because they dry out when sitting on a shelf for a decade.
sponges: For special effects with paint and faux finishing.
acrylic medium: A mainstay. This is my adhesive of choice for collage, and it also makes a nice finish with paint, too.
gesso: My gesso supply was too old to use. Gesso is an acrylic primer that accomplishes two tasks; it strengthens the canvas (in this case, book pages) and also seals it. By using gesso as a base, I'll have more leeway in applying fluids to my pages. Gesso can also act as an adhesive, and by building it up in layers (letting it dry between each one), it can be used similarly to modeling paste. It's a very versatile tool.
brushes: I wanted some basic bristle brushes plus a bunch of those cheap foam brushes.
brayer: This is a smooth, hard roller on a handle. Excellent for pushing inks or paints across a surface, it would also come in handy for compressing glued pages and removing air pockets and reducing curl.
rubber stamps: Because they can be used in ways that nothing else can replicate, and also because they're fun. Mostly, I was interested in alphabets.
stamping ink: As long as it dries permanent (waterproof), I'm not particular whether it's dye-based or pigment-based. The transparency of dye-based ink can be useful in layered effects.
wax paper: To prevent freshly-glued pages from sticking together, and to help keep paint or glue away from places where I don't want it.
sequins or something: You know, something. Some special whatever something that can easily be added to book pages. Usually classified as embellishments, this can include sequins, glitter, eyelets, brads, string, dimensional charms, yarn, ribbon, thread, wire, paperclips -- pretty much anything that doesn't weigh too much, has minimal bulk and could fit into a book. I didn't have anything specific in mind as I added this to my list, but it was there to remind me to keep an eye open for something interesting of this category.

And so, I went shopping. I also began being observant for stuff around the house that might look like trash but was actually treasure, things like the plastic mesh that arrived beneath a delivered pizza. That mesh can be useful for creating an interesting background texture, or pieces of the mesh could be snipped and adhered to a page at some point. Therefore, I began a stage of collection: some collecting had a price and some didn't.

One day, I woke up and decided to start working in the altered art genre.

Well not exactly. I come from a long background of artistic endeavor, starting with using crayons to decorate the furniture (something my parents didn't seem to appreciate). Along the way I've worked in a wide variety of media, both personally and professionally. In the early 90's I began working digitally, and soon after, all my work was digital. My personal work has been mainly the fine art type: landscapes, still lifes, fantasy, that kind of thing. You know, canvas, paint, matboard, frames, hang it on a wall, see it in print, the whole nine yards.

Last fall, I stopped making art. Why? you might ask. It's a fair question, but I'm not going to answer since the "why" is unrelated to the art-making and therefore not relevant. What matters is that I stopped making art and didn't produce anything remotely artistic for several months. So there was this "space of time" acting as an inner transitionary period (although at the time, I didn't know there was a transition in effect).

My first piece of art after this "space of time" was a frivolous thing, a digital wallpaper made for a non-art community online where I was hanging out. The style? Nothing remotely resembling fine art. I'd probably call it contemporary internet fanart. Really weird for me to have done something like that, but as I said, it was a frivolous thing. I wasn't invested in it; I made it just for fun (which is the primary key of creativity, but I wasn't thinking about that at the time).

Still in this spirit of fun and frivolity, my following pieces (also fanart) leaned more and more toward contemporary grunge style. By the time I actually noticed this was happening, I was really hooked on the style, or aspects of the style. Browsing web galleries containing grunge, I started coming across examples of altered art. Altered art was one of those things I'd known about but had taken little interest in. It didn't fit in with the fine art that I had been doing. But now, since my current style interest was grunge, I found a surprising appeal in the altered work I was viewing.

I spent hours and hours with Google, finding more and more of this expressive eye candy. Because of similarities in materials, I took a brief detour into works of scrapbooking which somehow led me to ATCs and finally I found my way back to altered works, books in particular. Here are two sites that especially prodded me to enter the genre:
Karen's Whimsy: a truly impressive and beautiful gallery of altered books, with the artist's comments.
Dentan's ATCs: more galleries of ATCs and small collage work than you'll be able to view in any one or two sittings.

My interest was flaring. There was nothing to stop me except myself. Was I really going to keep doing fine art for the rest of my days simply because that's what I do and just somehow ignore this compelling appeal of the altered pathway? Heck no.

So one day, I woke up and decided to start working in the altered art genre.