Found Text

In a previous post about adding words I mentioned "found text". It is one of my favorite techniques for altering a book. My friend Jackie and I exchange books in which we each alter a few pages using this technique and any other art techniques we employ - and then passing it back to the other person for a few more pages. We have done this several times. Right now one of the books that is going back and forth is a book of poetry. It has proven to be difficult. It's hard to isolate words that can string together into a thought. But, we love the challenge. Here are sample pages out of books we have done in the past.

For those of you who are intrigued with the idea, but are not ready to leave your marks in a book, I suggest you visit Erasures online. It is a site with many selected writings where YOU can play with the technique by erasing words you do not want to show, and leaving only your own found words. You can change it as many times as you want. You can also see examples of the words done by others with the same text. It's awesome and mind blowing how many different found texts can be picked out of the same text. We tried this as an exercise at a Mixed Media arts group meeting -and sure enough - each one was vastly different.