Well, I've messed things up with centering this line of text. Guess it doesn't matter. I had a totally different idea for a post in mind when I went hunting for pictures for the post. I ran across these pictures of my altered book on that hunt. I have not shown you all my altered book...yet to be completed.
I started this altered book early in 2010.
I started out with a novel called Our Game...no clue the author without going to see if that page still exists in the book. In choosing a book to alter, one has to take into consideration the construction of the book. This one has a sewn binding, which is favorable for an altered book. It had approximately 200 hundred pages. Nice paper stock, not too thick, not too flimsy. My copy of the book didn't have a dust jacket. (I think my youngest son may have read this book. Dust jackets never return with a book loaned to that boy.) It is best that you actually read the book before you go hog wild, tearing out pages and gluing other pages together. I have read all the pages taken out of the book and most of the ones that remain. I have however not read any of the pages that I glued together and the pages I did read were not read in cronological order. I've no idea what is going on in the story, but from what I gather it is an espionage story and I'd really like to know just what the hell Emily and Larry are up to with Timothy in the middle of it all and taking all the heat as well!
When I was doing Fish Picture 3 when I was done painting for the day, I'd take my leftover paint on the pallet and smear it on the cover of this book. The backside has no paint on it at all. Just the spine and the front cover got painted. I'll have to drag out the metallic gold paint for the back cover. I'll never be able to replicate the pattern on the front cover!
The buildings are done in black sharpie. I'm not done with the cover by any means!
It appears as though I've covered the author's name on the title page...That's a Christmas card on the left page. The saying below it says:
Be careful where you go
young man,
Be careful what you do.
Two little eyes are watching
you now---
Two little feet will be
following you.
The 3 figures on the right hand page came from a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Bulletin. I get one of those every two months or so. They are full of interesting arcticles having to do with research in the medical field and they have excellent graphics as well. AND the paper the Bulletin (which is actually a magazine) is high quality stuff! I love the HHMI Bulletin for a good many reasons!
The gold foil letters below the three figures says PLAY IT WELL
These pictures are not in order. This page has some sewn papers and a bit of metallic gold paint. Says: long ago. That long ago card came from a set of flash cards I found at the thrift store. Must be close to 500 of them and they all say something different! I wish the sewing machine liked me better cause it was fun to sew these things together! The pink is handmade paper, theres some sheet music, the heart is magazine cutout and theres some clear celophane three as well. The little dark square is a gold sticker (like the letters in the last picture) but it says Helix on it. I believe Helix is the company that made the stickers. The blue and white paper is scrapbook paper.
I'm not sure what came over me to make this fellow look like he does. Sometimes the muse goes a bit crazy. Nothing I can do about it! This page looks quite different now than when this picture was taken. The left hand page is no longer blank. It now wishes us all to have unnoticed bad hair days. And on the man's page are more words, of which YOUR NERD HAS ARRIVED is among.
I've done nothing to these two pages since the picture was taken. On the left I've covered up all but the following text:
The subject of another man
my heart leapt
fix us a bloody big scotch
and who gives a damn about
men, anyway?
And I fall right in, eyes wide shut.
The cartoon says:
"Hey! When I'm talking, don't erupt!"
It came out of a book full of cheesy cartoons of this nature. It made me laugh!
The Mickey Mouse sticker was a promotion for Behr Paints. I got it at the Home Depot last year.
That handsome man on the right side is Trace Adkins. He's a country superstar, just in case you didn't know. The quote below him reads:
Live as if you were to die tomorrow.
Learn as if you were to live forever.
Mohandas Gandhi
The picture behind and around Mr. Adkins is just pictures cut from magazines. I believe I got his picture from a magazine from the dr.s office. His little girl is afflicted with a disorder of one sort or another. Juvinille Diabetes perhaps. I really don't remember what was wrong with his little girl. He was in the magazine promoting research for the disorder though.
This is one of my favorite spreads in the book thus far. I've added to the blue page since the picture was taken. There is now a metallic blue starburst (chipboard) in the upper left hand corner. The layers on it are thus:
blue scrapbook paper, blue and white painted piece of chipboard, piece of blue paper, over that I splattered white paint. The little square is an inchie my dil, Terah made and the word LOVE is a rusted metal cutout. This page isn't quite done. I still need to put something in the starburst that isn't showing here.
The gold page is many pages glued together. In the center where the little green thing is, I've cutout an oval so he could go in there. I didn't cut the oval quite deep enough though and he does stick up just a bit above the rim of the oval. I first painted the page purple/burgandy and didn't much like it so I covered the whole thing with chocolate wrappers. Ferrero Rocher Choclates. Then I glued the little green guy in. He's a Maori character for Good Luck. Not sure just where I got him from...He's pretty cool though~! There are two pieces of punchinella held on by a long green wooden stick. The letters on the right say: GOOD LUCK. I've also added a metallic gold starburst to lower left hand of this page. I may or may not add anything to it.
This is the first page of Chapter 4. Markers were drawn right over the text. The little piece of white paper, that I should have trimmed a bit, says: Everyone goes to the fair.
The right side page, you'll have to figure that one out on your own. There are magazine pictures, stuff from junk mail, a playing card or two and a zentangle of mine on this page. Oh and there's a bit of gold paint as well.
More junk mail, magzine pages, gold letter stickers, that blob in the middle is a sticker from junk mail that I painted over with metallic blue paint, there's a paper napkin (bunnies) and a bee sticker and a couple maps on that page. The thing across the top there says: Welcome to the Middle of Nowhere
The purple page has a bunch of text on it now. It wouldn't make much sense to you without actually seeing it though so I won't tell you what it says!
Mystery is part of the fun!
The purple page is actually a few pages glued together. The spinner came out of a game for teenage girls I picked up at the thrift store. The text is gold letter stickers which say: FORTUNE IS UPON US and text from a magazine. The spinner actually spins and the choices it has to land are:
You already know the answer
all signs point to yes
only if you work for it
very doubtful
most definitely yes
don't count on it
The purple is tissue paper glued to the page with a piece of black paper behind the spinner. The purple and black were dry brushed with gold metallic paint. I went a tad nuts with the gold paint throughout this book.
The right hand page is several pages glued together, painted gold, a piece of orange magazine paper glued to it, painted gold and then gessoed over. I've yet to decide just what will happen with this page. The orange paper sticks up over the edge of the top. I don't know that it will stay that way though.
Left hand side is just magazine pictures and the right hand side is a postcard size picture done with magazine picture, paint and shredded US money glued right over the text in the book. I've since added a metallic red starburst that needs a caption put in it.
Acrylic paintings on both pages. Gessoed first to cover the text. On the right hand side there are the numbers 2060 which are wooden cutouts colored with a black Sharpie. 2060 is my house number.
This page is rather plain still. When looking at the book in person, you cannot read the words on the pages in this spread. They are covered with the wrapping my monthlies come in. It's a cloth-like stuff. Kinda like interfacing, but much lighter in weight. I've added a magazine cutout and a small article about wearing fur on this page. The fur arcticle is not very big, it sits in the lower right corner of the right hand page. It came from a McCall's magazine from 1972. We've come a long way since then!
I simply painted over the text with blue acrylic, let it dry and added a few things to the right hand side. Not sure what will go on the left, but it will contain a bit of orange. On the page:
An ATC that reads:
Phantoms seek to find
vengeance where
no vengeance resides.
cause deep inside hearts
is where only love
resides.
I wrote that poem, btw.
The 2 drawings are mine. Done on post it notes with sharpies. There's a silk leave painted black with acrylics, an inchie done in different inks, that orange paper is a pumpkin shaped post it note and the orange stick came from a wall calendar made from thin strips of bamboo. I painted it orange with sharpies.
Did you know?
We're not wimps.
I've done nothing more to the left hand page since the picture was taken. But the other page has a lovely picture of a mosaic from some ancient building on it now.
I covered both of these pages with magazine cutouts and text. There's also a check-out reciept from somewhere I went shopping on there. This spread is drastically changed! The text showing, that I wrote myself says:
Mr. may be many things, but a theif is not one of those things.
That is all covered now and it can't be read. My mind went off in another direction from where the text had originally been going.
The Butterflies are antique wallpaper with pipe cleaner and string for their bodies and antennea. The pictures from both pages are either from the HHMI Bulletin or a magazine of some sort. There's some metallic blue origami paper on the left hand side as well.
This is the motion part of the book. Magazine pictures, junk mail, stickers...the saying says:
He who thinks of the consequences cannot be brave. Ingush proverb
I made the dealywop in the center there out of a packagings catalog. I should have used tissue paper (it would have been much prettier!) but I didn't at that time have any tissue paper and when I saw the tutorial for it, I just had to make one! And it HAD to go in the altered book!
Here's a close up of it.
This is the MAN page.
The POOF! page looks the same but I've added a bunch of text cut from magazines to the purple page.
I've still quite a few pages that are still the text of the book itself that need to be altered. I'll take more pictures as progress is made. This is an ongoing project and it might take years to actually finish it!
Peace, my friends!
Go make something with your own two hands today!
Give up some smiles and a few hugs today as well. Smiles cost nothing, hugs even less!
But oh the pay off!!!!
Be well!
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