Welcome new visitors - La Selva Altered Book Talk

What a fun morning in La Selva this week. Most of the group I spoke to about altered books were new to the art form. They are interested in all kinds of art and creative things, so it was a lot of fun for me to be there and take their questions and share my work.

If you are new to the blog and want to learn about making an altered book, I recommend starting at the first (earliest) entry here and working your way forward. The most important things are covered early. If you have any questions, you can ask here in the comments section or email me. I'll be happy to answer.

Photo is a shop in Ben Lomond. Other photo is view of Bev's place where we hung out. The egg shaped book is the project we worked on one evening. Each person made one for Easter.

Inverting colors

A steampunk swap is on my agenda, so I took the collage I did awhile back, inverted the colors in Photoshop Elements, punched up the contrast a bit and printed them on 3 1/2 x 5 inch ivory colored card stock. There are 40 artists in the swap. I can't wait to see what comes in. I'm also in a book mark swap online. I mailed them out this week. I haven't done any swaps for a long time, and pulling out of the art show cirquet gives me more time for fun like this. I've also just sent off bookmarks for another swap.

This week I'm cutting out egg shaped accordian books for my art pals to work on at the beach. I'm also giving an altered book talk to the great art group that meets Tuesday mornings there. Should be a fun time.

Art shows - or not.

Last year after being urged by friends and art colleagues, I entered a lot of juried art shows. This was a pretty bold step for me and turned out to be a phenomenal experience. I'll share with you a little secret. I almost wish I had not won first place in all the shows (except one). If I had won thirds, seconds, or honorable mentions, then I would feel more inspired to try a little harder and hope to work my way up to firsts. I'm not telling you this to blow my own horn - which I don't mind doing - but this could happen to you too, and it is an odd thing to have happen - maybe it's more unusual because here I am in my 70s having this new experience. I have a stack of blue ribbons now. That's as far as it goes. I never took best of show, I guess that could be a goal. I've changed my focus though and want to spend more time on other things - my family, house, pets, garden, place in the country and my altered books. I don't want to be bothered with paperwork and framing and meeting deadlines.

Instead of being in the art shows, I want to experience the behind the scenes part of exhibiting, so have volunteered for some committees. Yesterday I spent the day with my friends Jean and Francis, checking in art for a juried exhibit. It was lots of fun and the whole day was a great experience. I did this years ago for the Haggin Museum annual art league show - but it's been more than a decade or possibly two. The fun of being in the midst of the activity and the actual handling of all the works of art coming in is exhilarating and being face to face with dozens of artists and photographers is awesome. Now I can put faces with a lot of names I've been familiar with, and also met many new people. Tomorrow is judging day and I'll be there again, with the committees including friends and my grandsons who will be carrying art for the judges. This should be another good experience.

What to do?

This is the deli wrap that I used to make the monoprint of my self portrait. Why throw it away when maybe I can have some fun with it. I placed it over a page of text and a layer of printed fabric and then stitched it with my old lame sewing machine, and here is the result. It would have been better with black or dark thread. But, it was just for fun anyway.

Monoprinting

A previous post points you over to my other blog where I explained the process I used to make monoprints. Now, I've been playing around with a new process. This time I first drew (traced) an image onto deli wrap with water soluble crayons. Then I applied a very fast light smooth coat of fluid matte medium onto some paper, and pressed the deli wrap (colored side down) onto the coated page. Just a few seconds of rubbing and the colors are transferred. I like this method better than working with the water. It's fast and is more controlable. Here are the new pics.

One of the good things about this method is that it can be used in an altered book very easily. Water might make the pages warp, but the fluid matte medium didn't affect the pages I used.

New post on the other blog on monoprinting

Here is a sample - but to see the post you need to go there.

Altered Book - Ilusions

I decided recently to redo my Surviving altered book. It is a mess structurally speaking and I wanted a better tunnel, so I used a board book and carved a tunnel into it with a box cutter and metal edged ruler. then I lined the pages with papers a friend gave me. Sort of industrial types of images on them, or stones and asphalt. Urban for the most part and fitting the being rescued from burial under debris theme. BUT! Since it is a board book, it isn't very thick. I considered constructing a box behind it to deepen the tunnel - but then another thought struck me. I was listening to an old recording by Marlene Dietrich called Illusions on a Divas album. I decided to change the theme and see what I could do with it. I used just enough of the lyrics to fit the length of the book. I found a font made of silhouettes of people in different poses. I used cat punchies to lead the reader on this little journey.

My friend Sally tells this joke. " I don't really have ADD. Was that a chicken?" Hmmm.... did I tell it right? Did you get it?

Anyway, on a whim the book took on this new direction. One of the things I tried to do was to use various rough edged and some netting and mica to cover the opening and make it look deeper without losing the images either from the front or from the back. This worked well, but doesn't show too well in photos. Here are the pics. I hope you like it.