artjuvenation
Terry Garrett, my friend and artist, who lives in New Mexico introduced me to a no glue book structure that is really exciting. Over the past few years I have been involved in creating art that fits into this book structure with many artist friends. The Creative Gents have done several book collaborations and my friend Irene has participated in one of our projects. Above left is one that Irene did. Above right is one that I did. Thank you Terry, Brian, Thomas, and Irene for your contributions to these books. Thanks Terry for introducing us to the structure. I think Terry may have an Instagram video on the structure construction. Not sure though.
I was asked by someone who visits this blog how to make the postcard holder that I shared weeks ago. So here goes…..
You will need a heavy stock paper for the construction of the postcard holder. I used cereal box cardboard for mine.
Cut the cardboard to 11 inches by 6 inches.
Score the cardboard at 2.5 inches; 3.25 inches; 8.25 inches; and at 9 inches. Fold on all your score lines.
You can cover with decorative papers first and then score….either way works. Let dry well or the papers might tear if they are still wet when attaching to the cardboard…..experience is speaking here.
Make your closure out of cardboard and attach to the center of the top and bottom sections. You can use brads and bookbinding thread to keep the holder closed. It should hold a dozen or so postcards. See photos above. Have fun!
I actually am not sure if I have shared this image of all my little boxes of mini-books. It is kind of like a shrine of little books. Some are full and some are empty. This “shrine” sits on top of a black piece of furniture housing magazines.
These are the last four of the eight journals. One has maps and another has what I call map lace. The third are abstraction I found and the fourth book has stamps and parts of vintage envelopes.
By the time this spread is published I might have added something more to it. We shall see. Tomorrow is the video.
The fabric on the right looks so much better when it is ruffled up a bit. Hard to scan it that way though. I guess I should have photographed it instead.
The cowboy figure on the right is a neon sign. I just had to add it to a spread.
Now you have the answer to the question of how the woman fits in this journal. She loves cowboys. :-)
One might wonder how JFK would fit into a cowboy themed journal. Well, he might not have been a cowboy but he was a pioneer. He signed off on man landing on the moon. So now you might wonder about the woman and how she fits? Stay tuned.
You will notice that the first few pages in this journal will include the woman’s face. Let’s see how it all comes together
I used the staple-less stapler for the “glue” on this one. I like three element collages. I guess you could say it is four elements because of the slide frame.
I wanted to do something totally different and because I like working tiny I decided to create collage that would fit in a slide frame. The “glue” that holds this collage together is one staple. To keep the slide frame together I used that sticky putty substance.
This project was a hoot to do. This one has both realistic and abstract qualities.
Mysterious, intriguing, just what is the message from the sub-continent?
The question came up concerning a postcard holder. Checkout the link from a previous blog post.
https://artjuvenation.blogspot.com/2023/11/postcard-holder.html
I was not sure about the background for this postcard. I had the woman focal point. I had the flowers but I needed something for the background and then as I turned in my chair there is was, a map. Works for me!
I love pops of red. Maybe the lips would have been enough but I sure like the quince, too.
I think I mentioned that I gave postcard holders that I made as Christmas gifts this past year. The other part of the gift was to send each recipient one postcard per month to put in the holders. So I am continuing to make postcards to send off. I am close to the 84 I need.
Just a couple more ATCs for the winter quarter 2024.
The task for the winter quarter was to create to the theme guilty pleasures. It took me a bit of time to come up with an idea. Since I use to drink several Dr. Peppers each day I figured it was a good guilty pleasure. I used a variety of different fonts, pages from several different book sources, to create the backgrounds. Then I found human images that might look a bit guilty. I added a sign to each “I Love Dr. Pepper.”
The theme for the international ATC group this winter was to use junk mail to create the 2.5 x 3.5 art. I used advertisement cards that come in bulk most months. I painted the junk mail with orange and turquoise transparent paint. I then used a credit card to dab black paint randomly. Once all the paint dried I punched circles out of the painted ad cards. I then cut orange circles or turquoise circles in half and joined them together so that I would have both colors on a circle. I used a bookbinding awl to punch a whole in the center of each circle and glued the twelve circles to the ATC sized watercolor paper that had been covered with some old book pages. I weighted each card so that they were relatively flat. Then I pierced the circles again through the ATC background. This was necessary so that I could stitch embroidery thread through each hole. By today’s date the ATCs should have arrived at their destinations around the world. Members of this group live in Germany, the UK, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand and two in the USA.
This is the last spread of this tiny journal. Tomorrow is the video.
