Altered book

 

 

 Yesterday I gave away this altered book. It began as a book on the subject of HANDS. I started adding examples of each new medium I bought to a page and often just used it as a sketchbook for quick drawings. As I added images it became larger and fuller and now will not close.

 Here are a few examples of images I added to pages of this altered book. This is an embroidered lace image of a few tulips stitched in gray thread. There are several embroidered and stitched images throughout the book.

 This page is a collage including two magazine pages, a thread sample chart and a leaf of fabric with embroidery added. Many times I used magazine pages as I collect colorful pages to recycle in some way. These pages have been used for note cards and gift wrap if the package is small enough. I have cut, torn, colored, wrinkled, stitched, tucked, gathered, folded, and more, the many magazine pages I have collected.

Above left an embroidered rose on a printed page. I wanted to check the color and texture contrast. Above right shows three pages. The center one has cut circles of varying sizes so when the page is turned the circles frame colored crayons on the left page and drawn, with colored pens, spiral circles  on the right page. All through the book I added short statements about what I had in mind.     

Left above shows a pleated and stitched collage

 using another magazine page.

On the right side the page has been folded back.

I drew a simple border in two places with markers to get the affect I was after.                                Left this page contains a problem I was trying to solve. Would colored embroidery show up on a printed fabric. I was using both a bright pink thread and a metallic pink thread to embroider a camellia and its leaves. Lighter pink did not show up well so I decided there needs to be a great contrast between the embroidery and the fabric to be effective. Whenever I found a quotation I liked I added it to the book as well as every word I could think of that said, "hands".

This last page was another trial. I cut out of a couple of pages the shape of a hand.......the cut hand was then glued to the facing page. I was hoping the direction of the text would be enough to show the hand form. There are many many pages of drawings, experiments, papers of all kinds as well as many marking tools used just to see what would happen. The book contains many years of just looking and trying something but is now gone. Will I start another one? Not for a long time as I have another big project in the works for this year.