Friday Night Painting Party

Friday night we had our altered book painting party. Nancy was having fun doing a book about her travels.

Julie made some gorgeous color and texture layers in her book.

Diane is playing with texture using a great little roller tool I found..... someplace, can't remember!

Some of the tools we got to play with.

Demo boards from the workshop.

And here they are at the end of the night. Of course you can't see the books very well in this picture but you can see their smiling faces!

4 things to do to a book....

1. cut out some pages 

2. scribble on the cover

3. paint on the inside

4. glue things to it

That's not exactly the way we were taught to treat our books when we were growing up. I used to feel bad if I even folded a tiny bit of corner down to save my place. I love books, I love the smell of books, the feel of books, when I see them lined up on a shelf I itch to run my hands over the spines. I saw my toddler granddaughter do just that the other day and it made my heart do a little skip for joy because I knew she was developing her love for books too. So...... why in the world would I do any of those 4 things?

Because sometimes I want to combine my love for books with my love for art. Why can't they become one? The art of altered books is the art of transforming a book into a new visual form. It's a canvas with multiple pages that can become part of the finished art or simply a base for something new.

This 2 page spread is part of the book you see above called Body of Work. This particular set of pages has sewing pattern tissue, color copies, paint and even a zipper attached to it. This book is about making a statement on women and body image but not all books have to make a statement. Like painting, the subject ideas are limitless. 

Do you know what ephemera is? Take a look at the photo above. It's the stuff you pull out of your purse, your pants pockets or the junk drawer in the kitchen. It's bits of lace, torn paper, playing cards or ticket stubs. Anything you can glue down can become part of an altered book. Start collecting some of this stuff because we're doing an altered book in our next Friday Night Painting Party coming up on the 24th of this month. We're going to provide a small book for you to work on (we can't go too crazy since it's only one evening) and we'll have lots of tools, papers, paint and glue for you to play with. If you want to make it more personal bring some of your own ephemera ~ re-purpose and recycle. Reserve your seat soon, these parties fill up and class size is limited! The workshop fee is 50.00 and covers everything.

It's really ok to scribble on the pages. Think of it as taking scrapbooking to a whole new level.

Peace,

Carlynne

Body of Work

Ok, this is totally different. This is not the abstract work that I usually do, or the landscape work that I enjoy doing. This is something that started a couple of years ago even though I haven't shared it until now.

In my late 40's I started thinking about where I am and where I'm going, what's expected of me as a female, what's important in my life. Maybe that's just the mid-life thing talking. Maybe it's the recent experience I've had with cancer that's adding to the conversation and giving me the feeling that's it's time to pull these pieces out of the closet and give them exposure. Maybe it's just that I'm in my 50's now. I thought about the things that women have done to themselves and to the other females in their lives over the course of centuries, from foot binding to corset wearing to plastic surgery. Things done for the sake of image, societal standing and financial survival. We did what we had to do. Do we still have to do these things? Have we evolved beyond this stage? Maybe, maybe not...

This 2-page spread in the book is about medical tourism.... these are actual vacation packages. Do you realize you can go on a cruise and have a tummy tuck and facelift at the same time?

So these thoughts turned into a book. Not your usual kind of book - this was an old book that was painted and collaged into a new work. I had seen some people doing altered books and I was fascinated by them. I love books so my first thought was - SACRILEGE! How can you do these things to a book? But then I thought.... what's wrong with transforming a discarded thing into a work of art. I found the process interesting, thought provoking, creative and challenging. Each 2 page spread became a work of art with a different story all related to the same theme. Then as the images and thoughts developed I started working on canvases that related to the book theme. In coming posts I'll show you some of those canvases. This has now turned into a series of works based on this same theme - women and body image.

As women, what are your thoughts on this issue? Ok, you're not all female out there so as a human what are your thoughts?

Peace,
Carlynne

Altered Books and then some

Hi everyone. Well Kelli got us back in the blogging groove again. It had been quite some time for both of us. Since the last post there's been family gatherings, holidays, painting, meetings, a new year rung in, home remodeling, family reunion, babies birthing and thankfully lots more painting. No wonder we haven't blogged much.


What you see here is one page out of many from an altered book I'm working on. This is only my second altered book. The first one I did was for a family member. Since doing that one I was intrigued with the process so decided to make one just for the heck of it. Well that has now turned into an entire series of works based on the theme of women and body image. The book is almost done and the ideas have expanded into many canvases. Once in a while I'll post a peek at the new stuff. For now I'm going to keep working on the book and canvases for as long as the ideas keep flowing.

Peace and presence,
Carlynne

Altered Book, Altered Mind

I know these aren't the best photos but it gives you an idea of what I've been up to. Having just finished a series of paintings - you saw a few of them on here recently - I've been a little stuck on the next group of paintings. I needed something different to clear my head so I started rummaging around the craft stores, book stores and Goodwill. For a while now I've wanted to play with the idea of altered books. I've always loved books and the thought of turning an old one into a work of art appealed to me. These are a couple of pages out of my first attempt, the book isn't done yet and I won't post the finished product on here either because it's actually a surprise for someone but I can give you a glimpse of it.

I found the book at Goodwill, it's great to find old children's books. They're sturdy and sometimes even have illustrations or words that can be used in the finished product. I don't know if you can see it but above the gator head it asks "what's the biggest living reptile?" Elements I included in the pages are photos that I took, fabric, oriental papers, tissue paper, acrylic paint, stencil and a feather. I used acrylic medium for glue. Turning each 2 page spread into a work of art is a lot of work, not to mention what it does to my studio, but I think it also clears my mind and is getting me ready for the next series of paintings. Sometimes we need to regroup and work on something totally different so we can be refreshed and ready for the next vision.

Kelli and I are also getting ready for the new year. We're planning some workshops and we'll keep you posted on dates and locations as they come up. The first one we're doing is for the Citrus County Art League. We're doing a demo on Feb 14th and a workshop on Feb 16th. Then in May we're heading to Rising Sun Indiana to teach a 2 day workshop based on our book Creative Colored Pencil Workshop. We'll do the same workshop in Ocala in June, then in July I head for Seattle to teach at the CPSA convention. There's more after that - we're even doing a workshop on printmaking without a press - I'm really looking forward to playing with monoprints again. It's such a fun process! Ok, one thing at a time...... back to the altered book.

Peace,
Carlynne