Module 4 Chapter 10 part 1

An altered book.

As you can see from chapter 9, I have chosen to alter a book that is based around the four seasons with paintings and poems that reflect the different times of the year.  I started in the middle of Autumn with a page I knew I wanted to keep.  I have now completed Autumn and Winter so I am posting these two now as the whole book will be about 24 pages long and it will make a very big blog.

I have divided the book into sections with a title page for each season.

/This page is printed on firm paper which has been stuck into the book.  It is based on a transfer print that I did onto fabric using leaves that I found in the woods.  I painted the whole page in the bright colours first using Koh-i-nor paints and then place the leaves on top and painted round them with a sponge a darker Koh-i-nor colour.  The lettering is computer printed letters cut out.

This follows on from the title page as the first line of the poem by Keats.  I have linked them together with little dots but they are not very clear on the title page.  This page has a wash of watercolour and fruits painted with water soluble pencils.  This again is a thicker paper that I have pasted into the book.  I have a Koh-i-nor white paint that has a slight sparkle and I have used this over the background to try and create a mist effect.

For some reason it was the cart and not the wheat field that reminded me of the hymn 'Come ye thankful people come'.  I had removed the picture of the wheat field but decided to reinstate it by gluing it to the back of the previous page.  The little plaits are made from cocos fibres as I didn't have any wheat. I have shaped the edge of the next page so you get a yellow scallop showing on this page.

Chrysanthemums are so reminiscent of autumn that I had to include them.  This page is all acrylic paint and I have used two coats of gesso onto the original book pages to try and cover what was printed there.  It doesn't quite cover it so you get a hazy view on one page and two poems about snails showing through the other page.  I managed to find a chinese proverb and part of a chinese poem about chrysanthemums.

As I said in my last post, the fox was the one poem I really wanted to keep so I washed the page with Koh-i-nor paint and decorated it with the gander's feathers. The fox is done on a seperate piece of paper glued in.  I used a mixture of water soluble pencils and watercolour paint.  The little bits of gold are from a jar of gilding flakes and it took ages to try and separate out the gold pieces.

I caught myself singing this song one day and decided it would make a good page for my book.  The background is acrylic paint and the window frame, curtains and leaves are cut from magazines.  I didn't know what to do then with the next page and I wanted a double page for the start of Winter so I stitched these two pages together to form a pock and I keep the leaves I collected in the pocket.

I've made a fold-out page for the introduction to winter.  The background is water soluble pencils.  There are some trees made from a stencil and there are some more that, along with the animals, are cut out from Christmas cards.  The first part of the paper is glued into the book but when you turn over the second and third parts you get the poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.

This picture was painted into the book by using two coats of gesso to cover the paper and then painting over with acrylic ink.  Because the paint is dark, the picture underneath does not show through.  

I liked both the poem and the painting on this page so didn't want to do too much to it.  I have reprinted the poem on a handmade paper which looks a bit like sheep footprints going across it.  I have stitched into the next page so it shows through on this side as well and does finish off the picture.

Shakespeare.  The background of these two pages are photographs of a frosted window pane in my garage taken quite a while ago.  The page on the right is a zoomed in print.  I have collaged the paper to create more of a pattern and attached crystal organza 'icicles' with the stitching around the edge.

You couldn't have winter without Winnie the Pooh.  This picture is copied from my daughters book.  Unfortunately, Christopher Robin looks more like an old man than a young boy but my trial drawing in my sketchbook was much better.  This is done on a separate piece of paper glued in and is drawn with soluble pencil.  I haven't continued the stitching onto the right hand page as this is the end of the book and I haven't quite decided what to do with the front pieces.

That has taken me quite a while to write so I am glad I decided to publish this in two halves.  The next sections are spring and summer and the cover.  I am more and more pleased with it the more of it I do.  I still don't think I will ever alter another book.  I have put the torn out pages to one side and they will go into the back of the book when I have finished.