Embroidered Collage

Here is my first altered board book.  It's for Nici from an "Alter This" swap.  She sent the book that had a plastic cd case attached.  I used the theme of time.  On the cd is a verbal description of the visual progression through the spreads.

     

I'm proud to have actually completed an altered book, little board book though it is.  Although, I'm still sticking to my opinion that the whole concept is not for me, for all that I really enjoy collage.  I just find it more stressful.  I'll likely take one on some other time as a challenge though.

 

As you can see, I played this morning.  I tried out the Jacquard marbling kit for my first foray into the process.  I only did paper, not fabric, maybe next time.  I had a lot of fun moving the colors around and the directions were very good.  Pictures of the process are in the previous blog entry.

I was a little disappointed in a couple areas, but I think I might not have done the set up quite right.  When I cleaned up at the end I found a gelatinous mass at the bottom of the tray.  I think a lot of the chemicals might have settled out, so I had a more watery surface than I should have.  This could have explained why I had trouble getting strong patterns.  The paint kept flowing after I combed it and maybe it wouldn't have on something more viscous.  I also used up all the paint but still have enough chemicals for another batch.

I took notes as I went.  When the pages were dry I cut a strip off of each for a bit to add to the sketchbook page, one of which is shown below.

Here are some photos of the marbling process.  Matt, my husband, thought they'd be neat to share and took them for me.  We start with my paints and my pattern tools, which are leftovers from a hair cutting kit that died.

 

 

 

 

Adding the paint to the surface.

Making patterns

Laying on the paper.

Removing the paper.

Rinsing it off.

Laid out to dry.

I finally figured out what to do with Nici's "alter this" board book with an attached plastic cd case on the front.  I'm developing it in the theme of time.  I sanded and gessoed on Monday and selected images on Tuesday and did the first round of collaging today.  I'd bought a "time" collage pack a bit back for an altered book thought.  Having since decided that altered books are not generally going to happen, it came to mind for this project.  I haven't touched the cd I want to alter for inside the sleeve yet.

I've been trying to find some focus, but not too much, and have developed some plans on which formats to pursue for my own entertainment and for various venues.  I need to continue with the small sized commercial ventures in order to help fund and maintain momentum for the larger.  I still love mail art.  I have some plans, but since I won't be pursuing them much for the next month, while I finish up a current set of plans, I'm not going to go into detail.  They're highly likely to change.

I picked up a book on Miriam Schapiro and am enjoying reading it.  I've started at the beginning but I soooo want to get to the part nearer the end where it discusses some of her mixed media fabric and paint on canvas pieces. 

I bought a new sketchbook and succumbed to starting it even though the previous one has not been filled.  The "canson field drawing" which has a thicker 80lb paper as compared to the usual 65lb.  I love the feel of it. I like the spiral format because even as a 9x12 it's easier to handle than a hard bound of a smaller size.

These are the pages I did in Dawn's calendar.  Its original theme was Impressionism and Dawn's set theme was creating art as a child might.

 

On the first page I altered the top of the image with crayons, which Dawn had used on some of her pages and I found inspiring.  I assembled a collage on the second and added color, trying to see the effect of what I'd learned in the workshop with JoAnn.  Then I realized what the theme was and gleefully added some cute little stickers.  I loved stickers as a child and they showed up everywhere.

 

The third page was actually the last one I did, after a trip to friends last weekend.  We were working on booking our joint trip to San Diego in July and there were lots and lots of windows open trying to find a reasonably priced hotel with decent reviews.  On the left I journaled about the Olympics, covered the page with a coat of acrylic medium, and reproduced some of my sketches on top in colored pencil.  I like the way it turned out.

 

These were the pages I started on.  I was thrilled to find the image on the left and didn't do much to the page.  She's in one of the galleries in Washington DC and I met her visiting museums with my school groups and my parents.  I looked rather like her and I would imagine she was my friend and we would go play together.  When I had the money, I bought one of those wooden plaques with the reproduction on it.  It's stil hanging in my house.  On the right I did some journaling about a work in progress piece.

  I've also begun working on Dragon Scales.  I've been thinking about this piece for a long time.  The picture shows a sampling of the scales I've been making up from a substantial part of a texture pack from carma.biz.   I cut Peltex scales, covered them in fabric, backstitched it down, added a trim embellishment, beaded them, then whipped a portion of the back-stitch with a ribbon yarn.  The picture shows a selection in various stages of completion.  I have a good two thirds left to go before I can start assembling.  I'm also expecting to add some embroidery floss touches later in order to achieve additional color shading.