I have finally finished my altered book. I found it hard going but I am reasonably pleased with the result. It isn't maybe as imaginative as some of the ones you see online but I have put a few techniques I have learned to the test.
The end papers in the book were both the same. A very delicate sepia print of thistles. Rather than spoil the print I decided to paint the grasses using acrylic paint.
I feel that this has lifted the page. The back end papers are the same.
Next came the title page for Spring.
The background was a piece of paper I did some time ago when I wanted to practice using markel sticks and a stencil. For some reason I only did a short piece of paper, perhaps I didn't think I would need to fill a double page spread. I came across this photograph of the gardens in Holland while a was looking through a magazine. I didn't want to cover my printed work but I wanted to put the whole photograph in because it was so good. The letters for Spring were produced using wordart.
This was the last page that I did. I really felt you couldn't have spring without Wordsworth's 'Daffodils' but I really struggled with how to present them. I found this simple sketch of a daffodil on the internet, so using my markel stick and stencil technique for the background I then drew little daffodils all over it. The photograph is of the wild daffodils at Farndale on the Yorkshire Moors. The line from the poem is printed on the computer using a hand made paper.
I liked this picture of the lambs and it tied in with the picture of sheep I used in the winter section. I needed to brighten the page with the picture and also to cover the page of poems as I wasn't keep on either of them. There are several nursery rhymes about lambs and I chose the most well known. The background is green tissue paper and I found the images of lambs, Mary and Little Bo Peep on the internet. It is amazing what comes up when you google little bo peep! The flowers are from a pack of assorted paper cut outs that I was given at Christmas and the writing is done with a silver pen. I still felt that the picture page needed something else so I have done 2 rows of stitching round the edge.
The two rows of stitching from the previous page show through on this page so I have threaded another thread through them to make a stronger border for this page of poems. My Thrush is borrowed from Frances Pickering who has a lovely drawing in one of her books that I copied. The nest is woven strips of paper from a colour magazine with eggs cut from a similar source. The poem above the nest is to cover the printed poem on that page and it is printed on the computer using a hand made paper. I cut around the top edge of the bird so that you can just see the next page.
On this page you can just see the blue stitching from the previous page. This is cherry blossom from torn tissue paper in various shades and a little bit of red cellophane. All the cherry blossom round my way is pink but the poem suggests it is white which I didn't realise until I had done the work.
I wanted this page to be really bright and colourful for summer. I have painted a bright background with various flowers and the little blue tit. I have also added some cut out flowers and a butterfly to give a three D effect. The lettering is done on WordArt and cut out.
Although the book was about the English countryside and there was not a picture or poem about the seaside, as I live by the sea I felt I had to put a page in about it. So here we have shells and boats and ice cream all traced or copied from books that I have. The bikini is a piece of yellow fabric with acrylic paint dots. The words are from songs and a poem.
Roses are the flower of summer and I didn't feel I could draw the full blown garden rose so here are some wild roses. I am sure that is what Robbie Burns would have seen. The page had some poems about bees and I particularly liked one of them but didn't want to reprint it so I have outlined it over the paint and it is quite readable like that. This page was gessoed and then painted but I found that the gesso sticks together when you close the book so I have to keep a piece of tissue paper in this page. I didn't use the gesso again after this problem.
I quite liked the butterfly poem and the picture so to brighten it up I cut these butterflies from coloured magazine paper. The ones with two colours are supposed to be lifted from the page, they are only stuck in the middle, but they have got flattened with closing the book. It still looked a bit boring so I added some more yellow flowers.
Here are the goldfinches. I used my stamp and did the different colours. I accidently printed the one on the end the wrong way up so I had to paint a bent stalk for him to stand on.
Summer isn't summer without cricket. I painted the background with Kooh-i-Nor paints over gesso and used a stamp for the bats. I left it out to dry in the living room near the window and the sun completely faded the paint on one side. I decided to leave it as it was as I didn't think I could paint round the bats without making a mess. The picture is from the internet and the red tape stitched with white thread represents the cricket ball.
I made a new cover for the book using off cuts from the pages I had made. I pasted the pieces to pelmet vilene and glazed it with Mod Podge to secure all the joins and give it quite a shine.
So here is my book.
I found this piece of transfer printing I had done some time ago and I felt it represented what I had done in this module so I used it to cover the front of my sketchbook.
I found this the hardest module so far. I don't think I will ever alter a book again. I don't like damaging books and I found it difficult to decide which pages to remove, what to keep and then what to produce. I think I prefer making a book from start to finish but I still find that I make them very pictorial.
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