The Cover
The first thing I did for this altered book art was sand
and gesso all the surfaces. Because I felt
that
the pages, despite being a board book, were a little on the flimsy side,
I decided that the book would have only two double-page spreads, and I glued
pages together to make them sturdier. I used Golden soft gel matte medium
and
fluid matte medium for all the gluing in this book.
The next step was to paint the cover.
I pulled every shade of purple and silver paint that I had off the shelf. I
used a damp sea sponge and went over every inch of the front and back, dabbing
on paint and using my heat gun to dry it every time I switched to a new color.
I worked from the darkest shade of purple to my lightest shade of silver. This
part was so much fun because I didn't have to worry about brush strokes or being
careful. I had a carefree time painting the cover.
I printed out a fairy picture onto
nice piece of matte paper and ran it through the Xyron. Then I wrapped it around
a thin piece of cardboard to give it a three dimensional look. I glued a piece
of silver cardstock that I had trimmed with deckle scissors, onto the cover
and then glued my fairy piece on top of that.
I used my Dremel with a tiny drill
bit to make the wholes for the silver eyelets. This was a nerve wracking procedure
because I didn't want to destroy the picture by making a mistake drilling
the holes. I was also worried about botching the whole eyelet smashing process.
So I carefully measured and marked where I wanted the holes before doing any
drilling. I wrapped silver wire through the holes and finished them off on
the back side of the cover.
If I had been very clever, I would
have done the drilling-eyelet-wire wrapping thing BEFORE I glued the book pages
together. But that would have been too easy.
Underneath the picture, I used stick-on
letters to write the title. Unfortunately, some of the letters didn't stick
so well, so I had to glue them down instead of relying on the original adhesive
backing.
The First Page
Of course, when I turned to the next
page of my altered book art, I found a bunch of ugly looking wire. I had
to cover it up some way. I traced a piece of white card stock the same size
as the
book
and glued
it over
the previously sanded and gessoed pages. A little pre-planning would definitely
have made my life easier.
The pages of this altered book art are covered with all
sorts of layers of paper. Layer one is torn lavender tissue paper. Layer
two
is white tissue paper which I printed with images of butterflies using my
ink
jet printer. I have an Epson C84 printer. The DuraBrite pigment inks allow
me to apply medium on the tissue paper without it smearing.
I needed to soften up the look a
bit, so my next layer was lavender Japanese rice paper. I stenciled some purple
circles here and there too.
Finally I added the images of fairies
that I had scanned from some old books, and the first spread was complete.
The Second Page
Since I wanted these altered book art pages to be consistent
in their weight and appearance, I laid down another piece of white cardstock
on the second double page spread as well, but not before gluing a little Tyvec
flap on the right page, since I knew that I was going to put a fold-out page
of a fairy on that side. See, sometimes I do think ahead! Again, this page
has
lots of layers on it, starting with one of my favorite tissue papers with an
ornate gray swirly pattern. On top of that I glued down handmade (not by me)
purple paper with leaf inclusions. The little black shadow fairies around the
page were ones I scanned and printed onto tissue paper. I also added purple
lace paper, some purple flowers made with crystalline
paper, and some little plastic gems I got from Goodwill.
The various fairy
photos I got from Art-e-Zine,
and
they will probably be familiar to many of you. Gillian does photo swaps and
then posts these great vintage images on her web site so you can download them
and use them in your art. She also has lots of arty ideas for things to make
with many talented guests offering directions and examples. Thanks, Gillian.
There's one little
touch on this page that I'm particularly happy with and
that's the little tulle skirt that I gave the fairy girl below. I cut a tiny
piece
of
tulle
and
then sewed
a little gather at the top. I cut under the girl's arm and tucked and glued
the tulle underneath.
Fold-Outs
In one of my old
books I found a beautiful image of a fairy painted by Louis Rhead. I made a
transparency of that image as well as a reverse copy on paper. I didn't
want
the background behind the fairy to obscure her, so I cut and glued the fairy's
paper image behind the transparency so that she would be opaque. I made
a little
frame for her using cardstock, stamps and stamping ink. The same decoration
is on the backside of the frame as well. The background behind the fairy
was
painted and covered with tissue paper. I glued the whole sandwich together,
tucking the little Tyvec flap between the layers, creating a fold-out page
for my
especially
beautiful fairy.
Finishing Touches
The last part of creating my altered book art was
to add the eighteen wishes that I wanted Danielle to have. I had originally
thought about writing the wishes around the inside of the book, but in the
end
I put them on tags to dangle from assorted purple and silver fibers from the
top of the spine.
First I measured the size of the
round tags. (I lucked out and got a whole bunch of these metal rimmed tags
for a buck from an office supply store that was going out of business.) Using
my
drawing software (AppleWorks, for all you Mac users), I made a faint gray circle
the same width as the inside of the tag. Then I used different types of fonts
and text colors to write my wishes for Dani ~ love, curiosity, patience, courage,
grace, kindness, strength, humor, tolerance, understanding, charity, friendship,
success, dreams, individuality, faith, hope, and imagination. I printed this
page out on heavy paper and ran it through the Xyron machine. I used a
circle punch (which miraculously happened to be the perfect size) to punch
out the words and stick them on the tags. I used all kinds of glitter, stamps,
and
stamp ink to decorate the individual tags. Then I tied them onto the fibers.
I wrapped a piece of silver wire around the middle of the of the tags and twisted
it closed. I stuck the straight end of the wire and through a hole I made
at the top of the altered board book's spine. I twisted it closed and let the
yarn and tags jangle and dangle over the side of the book. So much fun!!!
I was a bit nervous when I gave Danielle
her altered book art. Would she like it? Would it be what she was hoping for?
I was so excited to see her reaction, and she assured me that she loved it.
What
a
wonderful
reward.
This book is available for purchase. Please visit Fairy Art :: 18 Wishes for more information.
If you like this altered book art, you might also like to take a look at
my Altered Book :: Heart-chitecture and
also
Altered
Board Book :: Sea Dreams.  |
