Altered Everything Else

I wish this blog could be less sporadic, but at least it continues...

After my altered book experiences, I decided that other things could be altered, as well.  For another project in Lea's Anything Goes class, I decided to do an "altered game board"--again having been influenced by something similar I saw in either a magazine or a book.  Only it wasn't a board that was altered; it was the box--actually, the box interior became the game board. 

I searched everywhere for a suitable box; after several trips to thrift stores, I decided what I really needed was a Mah Jongg case.  I found tons of them online and ordered one with a vintage world map embracing the entire cover.   When it arrived, I decided it was too nice to alter!  So I sent for an entire Mah Jongg game in a plain case.  Perfect.  I put the MJ pieces in the map-covered case and kept the plain red case for my project.  (And, by the way, I learned to play Mah Jongg!  But I gave it up a few months later; and, though I buy the card each year, I have yet to try it again!) 



The outside cover, which was all the outside altering I did

I called my project "Time and Butter Flies"--which ended up looking like a game that should be able to be played, but I never actually came up with a "real" game. 

The interior, top and bottom

Oh, yes, and I had to figure out how games, in general, were set up in this day and age, which meant starting a games collection, some of which I play solo when I have time:  Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, Alhambra, etc., etc.  And then, from various online entities, I had to order game pieces, including dice, cards, bingo chips, markers, dominoes, and more etc., etc. 

For the most part, I just placed things where they made the most sense.  Though they aren't in the photo, I did alter part of a deck of cards to fit on the two little rectangular spaces.  I created the two insets outside the case and then adhered them to the top and bottom.

I had not altered anything in a couple of years; but recently, I decided, this being the Year of the Dragon, I needed to do something with that theme.  I am also a stamp collector, as in postage stamp, as in philatelic (as opposed to rubber stamps, of which I also have a major collection).  I figured that the stamps, souvenir sheets, First Day Covers, and other philatelic items featuring dragons would be works of art in and of themselves, and I was correct.



The altered stamp album cover

I had already accumulated quite a number of Asian-themed background papers, Asian-themed rubber stamps, and Asian-themed embellishments.  I had a binder from an old stamp album--so I would create an "altered stamp album" themed around Year of the Dragon.  This is a misnomer, since I was only altering the binder--I created the pages by cutting cardboard to size, covering each side with the decorative papers.  I did this project a couple of months ago in Lea's class--now called Art Fix and held at the Harwood Center Studio. 

Pages from Canada and Taiwan

So what remained was to collect the stamps--most of which I found on eBay, though I bought a few from other stamp sales Web sites.  For weeks, the USPS was delivering mail to me from all over the globe as I continued to add to this collection.  (One person has called this whole project a "collection of collections!")  Eventually, it all came together.  I finished everything but the embellishments and hope to have the remainder completed within the next couple of weeks.

Embroidered stamp is at top left

The philatelic items, themselves, were pretty fascinating, including a souvenir sheet from Lichtenstein with laser-cut designs; a silk souvenir sheet from Hong Kong; and an embroidered "stamp" (complete with adhesive on the back) from Micronesia.  I'm hoping to take the whole thing to the National Topical Society's annual convention, which this year is in Lancaster, PA--but it may be too heavy for my carry-on luggage.

My foray into altered books

I jumped feet first into altered books with only the Bev Brazelton how-to book as my guide.  Being a Francophile, or, more accurately, a Parisophile, I used Paris as the theme of my book, which I created from an oversized French grammar book.  It was rather frightening at first to tear pages out of an existing book, but I got over that very quickly!  I stole freely from the ideas in Brazelton's book--not perfect, but I was learning from it and from my errors!  [ Right:  The cover of my Paris book, so aptly and originally named Paris...  The picture is a silk one from Stampington's French Flea Market; it sits on a textured background made of Golden molding paste and acrylic; and the jacket is wrapping paper from a birthday present I received.]

[Left:  One of the spreads of the Paris book, using a rubber stamping, post card, decorative papers, tags, and even photos from the original book.]

I also included a niche at the back, which I botched royally.  But overall, I was fairly pleased with the effort, considering I'd had no real instruction--certainly a step up from the "collage journal" of Spain!


Continuing my travel theme, I decided to try a boxed set of altered books in one of my "Anything Goes" classes with Lea.  I used the two-part box in which my very first Kindle came (the first Kindle included a cover, so there was a side of the box for the Kindle and one for its cover) and hunted all over town for a couple of used books that fit the measurements of the box.

The book on the left contained Paris/Poland; on the right was London/Spain.  As I've already shown the Paris altered book, I will only show excerpts from the other sections of these.






My husband and I had gone to Poland so that I could visit the home of my ancestors--that was in Lomza, in northeastern Poland, and we made that trek.  But we based ourselves in Warsaw and Krakow.  The spread at left represents the old Jewish sector of Krakow--I used post cards, rubber stamps, art from brochures, tags, business cards, etc., to create these pages.




We spent one day at Auschwitz/Birkenau--an unforgettable day.  I never thought I would be able to translate that experience into art, but this may be the most powerful thing I've ever put into an altered book (or maybe into anything else).  I used scans of philatelic materials, plus acetate, wire, and photos and text from books and brochures to try to capture the essence of the visit.



This was one of the spreads from the London section--using rubber stamping, tags, brads, German scrap, and decorative papers to create a vintage look at London.






The Spain section of the second boxed book was much more colorful, as was Spain, in general.  I used post cards, postage stamps, rubber stamp inks, and background text to show a couple of the main things people think about when they envision Spain--Flamenco and bullfights (saw the former but not interested in the latter while we were there).





This was the niche that I did for this boxed set.  Cutting out a niche is killer.  I had my husband try it this time--no better luck--the edges were so ragged that I covered them with patterned tissue paper!  But the content of the niche was so colorful that it more than made up for everything--a hand painted hand in the style of Chagall that I got in Cordoba.




I have done a couple of other altered art works that I will show next, including a sort-of altered book, but basically, that was it for my altered book period!  On to other things...

My strange beginning to mixed media

Even as I was creating my Spain Slide Show, I decided to take another class from UNM Continuing Education--this one titled "Journaling through Collage."  I really had no idea what I was getting into--I knew what journaling was, but what did collage consist of these days?  I found some magazines from Stampington, and I immediately realized that collage was not what it used to be--and there were so many other things...

I figured I needed decorative papers--the 12"X12" scrapbook papers would do--and rubber stamps.  I probably got my first of these at Michael's and/or Hobby Lobby.  I knew nothing but what my instincts told me.  So I was really looking forward to this class.  The woman who taught the class was the nicest person one could imagine.  She understood the writing part of journaling, but not the modern journal.  She understood the concept of collage, but her abilities had not progressed beyond her high school days (if that), and she had to have been in her 60's!

The cover...

So I began a "collage journal" of that same trip to Spain.  First, I adhered appropriate decorative papers to cover each page of the drawing pad she told us to bring.  I did the cover, too.  I didn't realize it at the time, but this was going to be my first altered book!  (Everyone else, by the way, was doing either new age material or coping with some kind of grief or loss or problem in her journal.)  I began to add photos I had taken, some embellishments, and some rubber stamping. 

At the same time I was taking this class, I began taking card making classes at Rhonda's Creative Crafting (now defunct).  I think I probably used every technique that Rhonda taught at some point in my "collage journal"  (which more resembled an odd type of scrapbook), so the book actually looked pretty decent.  The teacher told me that she was learning a lot from me! 

Following this fiasco, I decided I had, indeed, created a primitive altered book, and I decided that I would try such a book for real, purchasing Bev Brazelton's Altered Books Workshop.  I'll save my altered books period for the next blog post.

Resources:

Stampington

Beginnings--I discover art and my niche in it

Retirement is a wonderful thing--well, that, and moving out of Southern California to Albuquerque.  Together, they have allowed me to reinvent myself.  My left brain had always been dominant, and having time has given me the opportunity to create art and use my right brain.

I started taking art classes at UNM Continuing Education--probably around 2005.  I began with Lea Denise Anderson's take on Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, based on the Betty Edwards book.  I am not a painter, but I could draw a little.  And pencil gives me control that a brush does not.  I also took Lea's part 2 of the same course, and then I added her color theory class based on another of Edwards' books.  It was that class, and learning in it to use acrylics--plus reading some other books--plus a trip to Spain--that inspired me to do my first project in Lea's "Anything Goes" open studio class that put me on the road to mixed media mania!

I wanted to create an art project that would incorporate the above elements to epitomize artistically the trip my husband and I took to Spain.  I will list my resources following this post; suffice it to say, I had learned about acrylics and then taught myself about acrylic mediums--gels, grounds, pastes, etc.--had located examples of using slide mounts in art--and had printed out a bunch of my photos from Spain.  The result of all this was to create a "Spain Slide Show" out of slide mounts, photos, acrylics , and acrylic mediums.


acrylic, molding paste, garnet gel

I picked the photos first--then created artwork on the slide mount that extended the colors, designs, and/or themes of each photo. Though I did this mainly with acrylics and acrylic mediums, I also used colored pencil and oil pastel. Amazingly, this early work, which I completed in 2008, is my all-time favorite.



colored pencil

RESOURCES:

Lea Denise Anderson My teacher and mentor at UNM Continuing Ed., now teaching "Art Fix," the update of "Anything Goes," at Harwood Art Center.

acrylic and micaceous iron oxide

Nancy Reyner Wrote the book Acrylic Revolution, which taught me the use of all those acrylic mediums--she operates out of Santa Fe, and I've attended a couple of her demos at Artisan art supplies in ABQ.

Lynne Perrella  Edited the book Artists' Journals and Sketchbooks, which contained many examples of using slide mounts for art projects.  I later took a workshop with her, which I will describe in a later post.  Her works, articles, and the people she has chosen to put in her books have been a great influence.

oil pastel

Lynne Perrella