completed altered book project - video

Right; now I am going to short-cut this posting ( still having probs...) I have completed the altered book project and altogether there are 24 collages including the front and back covers. Instead of posting the remaining images here, I am embedding a video which I have posted on You Tube

This is actually a much better way of seeing the whole book. Only one thing to remember for my next altered book - I must take out more pages to enable the finished art work to shut properly. I will try and remember to post a photo of the book on here, so you see my point. Of course I could use some sort of closure, but I have not yet considered doing that, still thinking about it. More tomorrow....

a view of my digital art

Just a very quick post today. I am still having trouble with things mechanical. This time it is my car ( auto, for my friends from across the pond). The battery is being drained by some intermittent fault and I keep finding it flat in the morning. Booked into a garage on Tuesday ( first day after our bank holiday weekend break) but what is the betting that everything works and behaves itself whilst they have the vehicle. And I am hoping to use it for a "staycation" in a couple of weeks. A holiday in the UK? I wish I hadn't bothered with the weather we have been having. Never believe long range weather forecasts, it's a mugs game. Still MOH and I are having a very expensive week in Lanzarote in October ( its cooler then!) for our 40th wedding anniversary, can't wait.

Now on to the subject of the post. A new friend from PDA has just posted one of my You Tube videos on her blog, I feel honoured to have been so chosen, thanks Veronica.

You can see all of my videos here if you haven't seen them yet, a very mixed bunch; an eclectic collection; art, music, frogs and Thomas the tank engine. Most of them are accompanied by my own music created from samples.

even more altered book pages

Still got quite a few coolaged pages from my very first altered book project to upload. If you haven't seen them yet, scroll back over the last couple of posts to get the gist and catch up.

Actually I have been a lttle while getting around to this because over the past week my wife and I ( ooer mrs! sounds quite regal, LOL) have just celebrated our ruby wedding anniversary - 40 years) and we have had a week of celebratory dinners and days out. We have booked a very expensive holiday ( of a lifetime?) for later in the year but this week we have had separate meals out with members of our families rather than having a massive party. This has meant less time for posting. However, the decks are now cleared so here goes with the third set of pages.

title: In Every Crowd....."

A fairly straightforward collage with a colour theme of green. The central geisha (?) is wearing red which contrasts nicely with the overall colour scheme and is reflected in the edging at the left and lower edges. The mesh was added at top right in order to balance the four figures. The stamped curly "bits" were added as an afterthought to fill the open spaces. I was actually quite pleased with this collage and liked it even more after making marks with a wax crayon under the main images. Seems to hold things together somehow.

title: " Aspire"

Ah, now. The lady with the wings was actually intended to be on an atc, however I never did like thte hand-drawn background. Foe this piece I gave it a couple of coats of white paint to knock back the colours and added the lacey edging to offset its appearance, did it work? The other ladies and dress were added together with a few stamps and ribbons and sparkly bits. The background was stained yellow tissue.

title: " Behind every successful man......"

I had an idea to use the vintage share certificate ( the background ) and develop a pun on bankers, after all the issues with the credit crunch. However it didn't quite work out and from bankers to engineers, hence the text on pulleys, and to "successful" men and their women. I must have women on the brain, LOL. I have used this lower, central character before on atc's, I think he is great.

title: " The purpose of art"

Here the background is an old scrap book backing sheet, with a leaves /autumn theme. I started searching for images whicyh would match the colour scheme and came across some images of paintings / an old poster and the couple. I added a book cover and Bob's your uncle.

title: "Girls love to party"

Not a lot to say about this one, fairly straight forward collage again. It does have an eclectic mix of images however.

title: " Celebrate women"

Another old scrap book backing paper used here, the central image is an old playing card. Most of the text came from a collage sheet from which I took the three ladies in the arched windows. I added the stars for a little extra interest.

Just five more pages to go, will try to find the links for some of the images used in this post. Most are downloaded with just one or two donated from fellow artists.

Altered Book - more pages

OK this is the second set of collaged pages from my very first altered book project. You have probably seen the first set in the last post. I will assume that you have read the intro there, but I will repeat the size. These are all 7inch by 6.5 inch sized pages. My friend Nancy suggested that the larger size was liberating; may be true but I am used to the straightjacket of atc format.

The first one is the third page in the book, I left it out of yesterdays because I was not happy with it and wanted to get in what I considered to be some better work. I think this is the reason why I changed tack; Too many unrelated bits and pieces here to be interesting - too busy. Not my style at all. The handwritten text is again a title that came to me as I was sticking items down on the page. I had a couple of stamped images of the 20's lady in a cloche hat ( I think that is what they are called) and the three sillouettes. I noticed that the two groups were opposed, looking different ways. The title fell out of that. Otherwise just lots of scraps, not happy with the composition - just kept adding things ( mostly the circular shapes) to try and improve it but eventually gave up.

Now here, I decided to use a set of magazine images of Buddy that I had collected. he was (is!!) one of my musical icons. Competent collage but does not light my fire! Elvis just added a touch of contrast.

This one I like, much more in my established style. The clincher for me was the use of the wired leaves which really framed the imasge of the young lady. background is watercolour paper.

Another blue theme. I have used the pocket watch stamp and the wheel stamp many times before but they helped to bring unity to the composition. The vintage gent with pipe and case is to me the one who is Dreaming BIG, maybe it is different for you. I can only imagine what the storey ia behind this collage.

A strange one this - I took a load of stuff to my art group and spread it out on a long bench to select the images used here. My water-colour painting colleagues were amazed but actually said very little. A little out of their depth, picture postcards are their usual inspiration. This is another I really like.

More next time, only ten pages to go.

Altered book

I was at first unsure quite what to call this piece of art. I had been looking at art journals and thought that I would like to do something similar, so when I put this together with the serendipity squares technique which I had recently used, I came up with the idea of using more of my scaps and off-cuts to produce a series of collages to be contained in a book. I had a childrens hard back book approximately 7 X 6.5 inches and thought that this would give me a larger format than the ubiquitous ATC format to let my imagination and creative juices rip. The basic idea was simply to use the stack of spare bits and pieces to make the collages. It had worked well for the backgrounds and so why not for this project.

I soon found out. making a background is fine, but I was not so happy with the way that the collages were going. But that is jumping ahead, here are the front and back of the altered book. I called it my "Scrap Book Art".

The front used a very famous image left over from a recent challenge and I utilised a couple of segments of the serendipity squares material. The back was simply a quote and three atc's which have languished in my finished tray for some time, with no sign of being traded. Waste not want not, heh!

I shall now show you a few pages, and then post the rest ( twenty images in all) over the next few posts.

This was actually the second image I created but was on the reverse of the front cover, so I guess you would call it a frontispiece. Starting with the oriental script and the two images by Klimt, I layered lots of backing paper and then what were trial stampings, around these images to give me what I considered to be a pleasing composition. I later added the two blue ribbons to reinforce the diagonal structure of the page. Have you seen Father Christmas? There was little connecting the various elements except the colours and placements, it was an eclectic mixture of celtic, african and oriental images. The photo doesn't show it too well but the background circle for the upper celtic cross was a gold, metallic sweetie wrapper The last touch was to add the title using text cut from "The Radio Times".

This was actually the first collage which I created. Lots to see, and again little connectivity between the images; just dipping in and sticking down. I thought it looked good when I first completed it but now I am not so sure. Again I have used a couple of pieces from the serendipity squares. Don't ask about the cows!! The title is stamped on this one, " MUSIC ART", I had thought that this would be a theme but soon changed tack.

This was the fourth (the third will come next time) collage and I had decided that I was not getting what I wanted so tried to use a colour theme for the piece. Obviously, I hope, Blue. The central image is from a painting by Vemeer, again note the serendipity squares pieces ( 3 here, off-colour) and the circular stamping to bring a little unity into the composition. The title seemed obvious when I wrote it.....

This one was to use a number of song sheet covers from samples by Dover Publications, I was not happy at first and searched for some time until I found the cherubs and the female violinist ( which are also probably from Dover) which I thought finished off the composition nicely.

Ah...... red this time. A flaming passionate reminder of the sixties for me. I will say no more.

Will post the rest of the book pages over the next few days, see you around.

back in circulation

Hi friends, I have had enormous probs with my PC- or so I thought. I have been trying to sort out my internet connection for some time and had to admit defeat, weel quite quickly admitted defeat actually. My usual means of sorting out a problem with the PC is to involve my son. However this time he has had to rebuild his bathroom whilst the kids ( step children) were on holiday with their dad. Obviously he had a very tight schedule so that he would be completed befroe their return.

When he had finished and we could arrange a visit to our house, he spent about two minutes sorting it out. I still don't know what he did and I am not sure that he knows but clicking on the right icons ( having the experience?) and playing with a few drop-down menus seems to have done the trick. Did I feel an idiot?

all that cold turkey for such a simple ( although) undiscovered cause. Will be back in action asap once i have ploughed thru my emails, etc.

Oh, and I have been making art whilst off-line. Something completely different for me. All will be revealed in due course. Hope to see you soon.