An Altered Book:: The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay

Frights and Fancies :: Altered Book :: The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay

Text:

Frights or Fancies

Looking back with a wistful sigh
the girls left Crystal Bay.

Leaving it meant more
than appeared at the moment.

It was black
and awfully dark.

Once or twice they paused, startled
alone
frightened
not ready yet
to trust

But then
light through the trees
and the sound
of shouts and laughter

"Run back if you like, but I will run on.
We have not many treasures now to be afraid of losing."

Ingredients:
collage art graphics, magazine clippings, scanned photographs, color photocopies, acrylics, gold thread, crackling compound

Lessons Learned:
1) I really want to learn more about how to manipulate graphics on a computer. When I scanned images and then resized them or adjusted their position, the pixels got tweaked and they lost focus.

Reflections:
This page was in my mind for quite a while, and it really turned out the way I envisioned it. I wanted it to be dark, creepy, scary-the antithesis of the previous two pages.

The girls set out on their journey, but it's a bit frightening for a while. They're not sure of themselves. Then, of course, they come through into the light of the next page which is called "Too Much Joy." Because the title of this chapter was "Frights or Fancies," I wanted to juxtapose beauty with images that were just a little off kilter. I knew I wanted the butterflies to represent the "fancies" side of things, and I had an idea of what I wanted for the "frights." But it wasn't until I find a Dover book of collage images that it sort of crystallized for me.

It took me a long time getting the "frights" to look right on the computer. I originally scanned them and then rotated and resized so they would fit with the butterflies. Unfortunately, my experiences with manipulating digital images is limited, so trying to adjust the scans made them blurry and faded out. So I photocopied them instead, resizing them on the photocopy machine. Then I cut and pasted them with the butterfly images on a separate sheet of paper. I then had a color copy made and cut and glued them onto the page.

I used Anita's Crackle as the background. That stuff is so fun to use, but very stinky. And it takes sooo long to dry. It took about 3 days of applying and drying until I was ready to glue down the butterflies. I was very impatient. I rubbed some Brilliance white ink into the cracks so it looks really cool, although it doesn't show up well on this web page. If you click around on the butterflies on the picture above, you can see close-ups of the images.

It's a very tricky thing gluing multiple book pages together because you kind of have to consider how the pages move when the book is open versus when it's closed. The pages shift position. For example, this page cannot lie perfectly flat open. That's okay to me, but it's just something I never really considered when I started working.

I was visiting my mom and aunt this weekend and two of my sisters were there. I actually did all the gluing of the butterflies and text, as well as the sewing while we were sitting around the table talking. My youngest sister said that she could do without the skulls, but I love the way the eye sockets in the skulls mirror the circles on the butterfly wings. None of them had even heard of an altered book before, so it was fun to share what I'd done with them and get their reactions. I'm so lucky to have so much positive female energy around me. Each one of them is artistic in her own way, so I know that even though something I do may not be their taste or appeal to them, I know they're going to support me because they love me.

Responses from Others:
As far as manipulating graphics on your 'puter, here's some tips:

1. Always scan using the BEST resolution.
2. Once your image is scanned, immediately save it in .tif format, as opposed to .jpg. this will make the file larger, and may make your graphic program run slower during manipulation, but it will PREVENT pixel loss. When you save a file as .jpg and then manipulate it, you will lose pixels. Once you are all done with manipulation, then do a "save as" .jpg This procedure also holds true for touching up your artwork scans before uploading to the web or email. but remember, always convert back to .jpg before uploading, otherwise your file will be HUGE!
3. If you are working with a file that is already in .jpg format, do a 'save as" .tif and then start manipulation and follow tip #2
Great advice! Thanks Mona!

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