Altered Book Collage and Mixed Media - Vintage Boy and His Dog

This is a recently finished page that I did while vacationing up North at our Lake house.

A Boy and His Dog

I haven't had nearly as much time this year to spend on my own art, since I started teaching art at my school. It has turned out to be a much larger undertaking that I anticipated. So it felt really good to do something just for me for a change. Teaching art has certainly stretched me in many ways and my art has definitely improved because of it, but I miss having the free time to just go into the studio and play.

And I haven't had too much free time to post on my blog.  But summer is coming. So I hope to be better about putting things up.

If you happen to visit, please leave a comment so I know you were here.  Thanks.

Altered Book Spread - Collage

I am trying out different things in my art journals these days.  This particular one is a collage of various vintage papers and ephemera.  I really like it. I don't know whether it is completely done or not.  I am letting it rest awhile to see if I feel it needs more later.

Altered Book - Marie Antoinette

Altered Book for Round Robin with the theme Marie Antoinette. I really enjoy working with historical themes because I love reading all about the times of the theme. This topic was fascinating and I learned a lot doing the research for these pages.

First spread shows the first portrait on the left of Marie in casual cotton gown and on the right - the repainted portrait after the public uproar - repainted to show her much more "queen-like". The public claimed the first one looked like she was in her underwear!

Pull-out tags tell the story of the portraits.

Spread showing Marie and her Hameau de la Reine - a village she had built on the grounds of Versaille to replicate French  village life. She often went there and dressed as a milk-maid.

Fold-out on the left shows a collection of Marie's shoes, which according to the etiquette of the times, she had 4-6 pairs of shoes made each week.

Sign-In tag

TBT "Deux Vagabonds" Altered Book Page

This is an altered book page I made last fall. I happened to decide to work in this book again, and saw this and thought it was worth another post.

It is sort of hard to see, but there is a lot of texture going on. I used texture medium through stencils on certain areas. There also is quite a shimmer to some of the paint.

 

There is a chill in the air and fall is definitely on the way. This is a good layout to say hello to Fall.

Altered Book Round Robin - Life is a Journey

This is a spread from another round robin I am playing in. The theme is Life is a journey.

Women in History - Art Journal Round Robin

This is the first round robin of this type that I have been in. We made our own journals using the Teesha Moore tutorial for her 16-page journal from one sheet of paper found here. I used a scraped paint background, then stenciled over it with Donna Downey stencils and used some found objects for further mark making ala Traci Bautista's Printmaking Unleashed. Then I used washi tape, dry-walling tape and perforated tape pieces to add more texture. The cover has a piece of ephemera that is a portrait of Mary of Teck.

 

Inside cover spread has sign-in tags and a page featuring Elizabeth I. 

 Back cover

Inside back cover flap

Egypt Altered Book Pages - Round Robin

This is the first spread in an altered book I just did with the theme "Egypt". Each piece flips out and has information on the back of what each artifact is.

The background is a carving of Akenaton and Nefertiti and three of their daughters.

And the next spread has pull outs kept in a papyrus pocket with a stamped background. I had purchased a big sheet of papyrus last year at Hollanders in Ann Arbor MI, one of my favorite stores.

When you pull out the pieces, they also have information on the back describing each artifact.

Ancient Egypt is one of my favorite subjects. I love Ancient History. So this was a really fun round robin to participate in. I was lucky enough to have an old Stampin' Up set that had Egyptian images. Most of the other images either came from a daily calendar from the Metropolitan Museum of Art or images from old National Geographic or Smithsonian magazines.

American Southwest Altered Book Spreads for Round Robin

Completed Spread 2 - Flap Open

Completed Spread 2- Flap closed

Navajo Bead Boy Sand Painting Replica

American Southwest Altered Book Work In Progress

My next round-robin altered book has the theme American Southwest, so I have been playing around trying to come up with something to go in her book. I have been having a bit of a hard time with this one. I just started with some colors that I felt gave the idea of the SW and scraped paint onto a piece of mixed media paper. I then started layering texture using my fingers, various stencils, rubber stamps and other things I had lying around on my art desk. I found an old coloring book I had from Dover on American Indians of the Southwest and hand copied the Navajo sand painting design onto the page.

I also just worked on another background page, trying for different effects. So here are my two works-in-progress.

I will likely cut both of these down before using them. I'll post the final results later this month.

"Love" Altered Book for Round Robin

Just mailed out the most recent of the altered book round robin books. This one had the theme of "Love". The first spread was done using lots of colors and then finishing off with oil pastels. I love the glow the hearts have. The second spread was my try at doing Zentangles. I wasn't totally happy with this one, but oh, well, it had to go out today. Hope the owner likes my efforts.

Zentangled Hearts

Sign-in page

Altered Book Spread - English Garden

This is the latest in my series of entries into others' altered books for a round robin I'm in. This one will eventually wind its way back to its owner in the UK. Had a lot of fun with this one. Her theme is "English Garden". I found this little image on Pinterest and decided to try to integrate it onto the page by painting the rest. I do like how it turned out.

Botanicals Altered Book Page

This is a practice page for a round robin I am participating in. I'm not loving how it turned out, but I hope that the actual piece is better. I was inspired by this post Moss Hill Studios. I just adore her work!

Altered Book Spread - "A is for Apple"

Finished piece for my altered book swap - for a Big Girls Alphabet Book - A is for Apple
 

Below are the step by step photos of the process. I used the tutorial from here to make my background.

Gesso and dots for background,

Added three colors of acrylic paint -

Close up view of texture

Stamping and texture added.

Added apple from water color painting posted here.

Altered Book Spreads - "She Who Loves"

This is the latest two spreads from my 2014 Altered Book Round Robin - this one has the theme of "She Who Loves".  This was a very small book - so it was a little challenging for me. I am not used to working in such a small size.  But it's getting mailed out today. Woo hoo!

Love is a Many Splendored Thing