Altered Silver

You first met this spread as "walnut ink spread A": a wash of walnut ink which was fixed and followed by a yellow glaze. Then it received an impromptu red glaze which transformed it into "Red Pages #4." Those entries cover the prior history of this spread, which found its completion here and is now titled "You deserve the best."

The evolution from "Red Pages #4" to "You deserve the best" was completed in a single day.


I began by browsing through an old magazine and snipping bits that appealed to me. When I felt the collection was sufficient, I began laying bits out against the spread, determining their general placement.


To tone down the overall redness of the pages and to draw out the oranges and pinks of the colored snips, I also included some pale orange tissue paper. When I was satisfied with the design, the colored snips and tissue were adhered into place with matte medium.


A cool thing happened as I applied the brayer over the spread at that point. Both tissue paper and most magazine images are very fragile when wet, and as I rolled the brayer across the pages to ensure all was lying flatly, the edges of the brayer began lifting tiny bits of the damp papers, leaving white streaks. I liked the look, so I continued rolling the brayer, repositioning it to make even more streaks. Compare this image carefully with the previous one to see some of the effect; my camera isn't high-res enough to show it completely.


After the spread had dried, I stroked it with a yellow ochre art chalk, again to assist in drawing out the oranges. The spread was sprayed with fixative to hold the chalk in place. Then the remainder of the selected snipped bits were sealed down and the spread was left to dry.


I wanted to bring something to the outer edges of the spread, and tissue paper was the ideal something. Red seemed to be the obvious choice of color, but after tearing the tissue and placing it, I really didn't like how it looked. I liked the way the oranges and purpley-pinks had been drawn out with the orange tissue and the chalk, so to add red here would only subdue those other hues again. (And too, as I've mentioned before, I'm really not a fan of red in itself.)


I reached for the lilac tissue and found a winner. The tissue was adhered and the spread allowed to dry.

To further enhance the other (not red) hues of the spread, I applied a yellow glaze over all of it.


While the glaze dried, I made a colored pencil drawing on white tissue paper. My plan was that the white tissue would further tone down the intensity of the red over the entire spread. Too, I had the thought that if I sealed the drawing face-down to the spread, it would still show through the translucent tissue with sort of a "stained glass" effect. So, that was the plan. I finished the drawing and determined its placement, almost exactly in the center of the spread.


To ensure the proper placement, I lined up the tissue with where I wanted the (face-down) drawing to be, then helped conform the tissue into the ditch of the book. While holding the left side, I lifted the right side of the tissue, applied matte medium to the recto page, then lowered the right side of the tissue into place and brayered over it. At this point, I made an error. The plan for the tissue was to tone down the brilliance of the red, but when I saw how very dusky the tissue made the entire spread, I panicked. In my panic, I remembered something important and forgot something equally as important.

What I remembered is that tissue paper becomes most translucent when it's been wetted; usually an application of medium is suficient to reach that point, but also usually, the medium ends up on both sides of the tissue. So when I observed the duskiness, I began applying more medium to the top of this tissue which resulted in the tearing shown in the photo.

What I'd forgotten is that the more opaque (heavily pigmented) styles of tissue paper (like this white) take a little extra time for wetness to seep through from one side to another. If I had remembered this point, I could have waited for the tissue to soak up the medium instead of assailing it with additional medium during its most fragile wet period. Well, hindsight is a beautiful thing, n'est-ce pas?

Additionally, the expected "stained glass" appearance simply wasn't going to happen through the tissue that way anyhow. The face-down drawing had merely blended into the background becoming virtually invisible.


After snapping the photo of the tearing (muttering something about needing to write about it in this blog), I carefully pulled the tissue free of the spread, then tore the tissue away from what remained of the drawing. Then the drawing was sealed down, face-up, as it should have been done in the first place.

Whew, crisis averted, and well hey, it looks kinda cool this way!

A few more steps completed the spread. A transfer-letter ampersand was burnished into place to facilitate the flow of the text. More yellow ochre chalk was applied to places that seemed to need a "boost." After a coat of fixative, the border was written into place. Et voilà, fini! (In case you're curious about the small details my camera doesn't catch: yes, there are areas of this spread in which those interesting effects of the first layer of walnut ink can still be seen!)

The Text
"You deserve the best answers and Stuff. Do you know? Don't miss a great new way for learning the secrets, in the shadows, breaking the myths."
The border repeats: "Tell the moon-dog, tell the March hare."




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

So there I was, sealing and priming, when suddenly I received this white hot flash of inspiration. I'd take an interesting piece of paper, match the background of the spread to it, then use other papers around it. No prints, no patterns, just the utter coolness of the paper itself. It was an incredibly compelling idea, so I grabbed a prepared F&W spread and picked out a paper. It was a deep red.

Next, the paints hit the palette as I attempted to duplicate this garnet hue. I started with red cadmium medium and some green and some black. I even had a bit of yellow ochre on the palette, not sure if it was needed or not.


The first attempt was too bright, cherry-like, so I set that one aside. After mixing in a bit of black, the second attempt was made, but it had too much of an orange tint to it. Obviously, that yellow ochre crept into the mix somewhere.

(I'll also add that it wasn't helpful to be doing this at a time of day when the sunlight was dancing through the trees onto my work area; sort of like trying to find a certain color in a busy discotheque.)


Finally, I'd reddened four spreads and had to give up at that point since I only have drying space for four F&Ws at a time. #1 was too bright. #2 was too dark as well as too orange. #3 was an attempt to follow the same mix as in #2 but without the yellow ochre. #4 was the result of mixing in a bunch of acrylic medium, creating a translucent glaze (which is very shiny because I used gloss medium), and applying it over the walnut ink spread A (which already had a yellow glaze prior to this red layer).

It was positively odd to view my drying table and see four books of red. Red isn't a color I use very often; to be more specific, I simply don't do red without very good reason. Yet here was a vast display of red with nary a reason in sight. Henceforth, these four spreads were nicknamed The Red Pages in my mind.

And what of my brilliant inspiration?


Red Page #3 was declared the winner as a very-near match to the chosen paper, so I set it up on the work area and selected four additional papers to work with it.



I tore paper, crumpled it, uncrumpled it, sealed it down to the spread. In the end, I have three layers of papers in a kind of stream across the spread.

And where is the red paper that so much paint was sacrificed to make a match for? Well...the heat of inspiration kind of wore off, and I just haven't gotten that far yet on this spread. When I do get back to it, at least I shouldn't need to mix any more red paint.



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