Altered Book

Two weeks ago I started taking an altered book class in Edmonds with the instructor Mary Peterson.  What a fun class it is!  We were asked to bring a book to class that was at least 300 pages.  Mine was an old school dictionary.  At the first class we cut out about 1/3 of the pages in the book and we used glue sticks to glue together the remaining pages one page after another in groups of five.  We left a huge section in the back of the book where our niches will go.  It took almost two and one-half hours to cut out pages and glue the remaining pages.

 

 

 

I have been on a Renaissance kick lately and so I decided to create an altered book with a Renaissance theme.  I made preliminary drawings of what I wanted and then began the cutouts for the first page which was painted.  Ivy was added.

 



 

 The second page was an inkjet transfer and cutouts were made to match the outline of the woman.

I had found a great photo of the cathedral in Florence which I added to the third page.  The background is a CitraSolv paper which was lightly sanded.  It looks like lightning is striking.

Here is the fourth page and you can see the cutouts easily.  I have a Tuscan house for this page.

Here it is standing up.

The back of the book is where the niches will go.  I first used gel medium on the three ends of the remaining book.  It glues all the pages together.  When dry I used an X-acto knife to cut out all three niches.  This took an enormous amount of time.  Altoid cans will go in two of the holes and the third (round) hole will get a mint container.

This is a huge long term project.  I will share the results in a few months, not weeks.