The Cover
First I glued pages together using gel medium.
Then I sanded and gessoed (twice) all the surfaces of the little
board book. I then put a glaze of Lumiere's mixed with acrylic matte
medium over all the pages, alternating green and blue double-page
spreads.Even though I end up covering many of the pages with paper,
putting gesso and paint over the pages makes me feel like I have a
fresh structure to work on. For the cover, I cut out an oval, so the
lovely mermaid image would show through from the first page to the
front. It is not easy cutting through two thicknesses of board,
especially when I'm cutting curved edges. My husband got me a
"monster exacto" blade. It has a whole bunch of fresh blades sitting
inside, and when one gets dull you rotate a dial and a new blade
emerges. Very cool. And very sharp. Fortunately I didn't have to
worry too much about jaggedy edges because I knew I would be wrapping
gold tissue paper around the rim of the window.
Next I glued sheet music to the lower portion
of the cover - front and back. I stamped over it with Lumiere Halo
Blue Gold. The beaded trim was made by using gold wire ribbon and
hand sewing the gold braid on top of it while adding the beads. I
attached the beaded ribbon using double sided adhesive tape. Later,
however, I had to remove the ribbon so I could fix the outside spine
of the book which had split. I removed the cardboard piece covering
the spine, and replaced it with painted and sponged Tyvec and then
retaped the gold ribbon. I also punched a hole in the Tyvec at the
top and threaded in the yarns and threads adding beads, charms and
buttons. Then I glued down the sand dollar charm and put little gold
holeless beads around it.
Page One
Teach me to hear mermaids singing.
The first thing I did on page one of my altered board book
was glue the mermaid's picture so that it was centered beneath the window.
Then
I
collaged
some
of
my gessoed tissue paper all over the two pages. You can read more about how
I made this gessoed
paper.
This particular gessoed paper had been wrinkled, painted with metallic green
Lumiere, and then when it was just slightly damp, I used a soft brush and
dusted
over it with Aztec gold PearlEx powder. This paper had been hanging in my closet
since last summer, waiting to be used. I love the way it looks here.
I put some fabric mesh and sequin scrap in the
corners to frame the pictures. Below the picture I layered German
text, green vellum, and packing tape transfers of the starfish. I
also glued a little piece of decorative paper at the top with a green
plastic rhinestone in the center.
Page Two
Do you like to swim little fish?
My fist likes to swim.
These altered board book pages have lots and lots of layers.
On
the bottom is a French sea chart which was enlarged and printed on
tissue paper. On top of that is some lace paper. Then I make copies
of tide tables and glued those on the left side. On top of that was
an old soap advertisement and a page from an antique children's book.
The shell stamps were done using an ink jet transfer. On the right
side is a mermaid image and a compass rose, both printed on tissue
paper using my Epson C82 printer. The two little mermaid images were
taken from a larger picture. I used Brillance stamping ink to add
color and unify the images after they were dry.
Page Three
I brown old . . . I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
shall I part my hair behind?
Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers
And walk along the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing each to each.
I don not think that they will sing to me.
~ T. S. Eliot
The seaweed forms were made by melting Tyvec
with my iron. I painted the Tyvec with my FW acrylic inks. After they
had dried, I placed the Tyvec between a sandwich of parchment paper.
I ironed the sandwich on the cotton setting and watched the Tyvec
virtually disappear. Make sure that you do the ironing outside
because the fumes are pretty nasty. And I wouldn't recommend these
techniques to anyone who is sensitive to odors. I peeled the green
blue shapes off the parchment and used gel medium to adhere them to
the book pages. The pink/gold/purple coral shapes were done using the
same procedure, except this time I painted the Tyvec with swirls of
the Lumieres. Since the paint is thicker, the Tyvec doesn't disappear
as it did with the inks; it bubbles up into interesting shapes and
designs.
On the left side of the altered board book I collaged some
vintage nude
images with some fish pictures I had to create the mermaids. On the
right I glued down a napkin, and after it had dried, I glued the T.S.
Eliot poem on top of it. I had previously printed the poem out on
tissue paper.
Glitter, holeless gold beads, cheap plastic
pearls, and a couple of starfish were scattered along the ocean
floor. Then I draped the entire spread with shimmery blue tulle to
make it look as though we were viewing a scene underwater. I attached
the tulle using a strip of double stick tape down the center of the
gutter as well as few dots around the edges to hold it
down.
Page Four
We are the music makers
and we are the dreamers of dreams
wandering by lone sea breakers
and sitting by desolate streams.
~ O'Shaughnessy
I tried to make the last spread of this altered board book
a little more
modern looking. I put down layers of tissue with a beer label and an
old advertising card on the left side. On the right was a collage of
a woman from a vintage long underwear ad and some miscellaneous
magazine images for her tail. The text was printed out and glued down
on the page. I put more tissue around the edges, and then I was
done!
A similar piece is available for purchase. Please
visit Mermaid Art :: Sea Dreams for
more information.
If you like this altered board book, you might also like to take a look at
my Altered Book :: Heart-chitecture and
also
Altered
Book Art :: 18 Wishes.  |
