My first altered Book.....2011

As you can see I am a wee bit late in posting these pictures.  I hadn't blogged or done much "art" in the past couple of years, so when I found these pictures I decided they needed to be posted here.  My next few posts will involve a series of altered book pages I did in year long round robin swap that started in January 2011.  We began with our own altered books and created a theme for everyone to follow. I chose Paisley Passion because I LOVE PAISLEYS (I even have a tattoo that incorporates them!)  So these are the pages I did in my altered book before sending it out.

My intro page, the little envelope holds the "rules" for my book

(basically it was do whatever you want just no nudity) 

The cool lady silhouette is a cricut cut, the rest is just 

a collage of paisley and pink things from my stash.

                                            

This is my paisley world that I wish I could live in.

Of course it is a paisley beach, with paisley house,

and paisley coral in the surf with a sea turtle swimming.

There are a lot of paper pieced stamps (tree, house, clouds, sand),

sticker bling, turtle sticker, lots of paisley rubons and die cuts,

some ink and a few stamps.

This is just a collage of some of my favorite paisley

"things" in my stash.  I hand drew a paisley and

cut it out of the page, then glued it down to the page

before it in my book that I had painted pink.

More paisley stuff, this page isn't really "done",

one day I may add more to it. But I just cut the

paisley on the right page out of the piece of paper

I glued down to the left page, and when I did I 

backed it with some sheet music.  And some paint,

I am not sure what will finish this, but until it speaks

to me I will leave it be.

So this was the beginning of my very first altered book. I really had no clue what I was doing, but I enjoyed prepping my book and making my pages.  I was very afraid to send my book out after all the work that I put into it, but when it came home a year later I was SO GLAD I had participated in the swap.  Look out for some pages I did in other people's books in the swap in my next posts! 

Beth Grub's Class at Plaza Art June 29, 2013

Here are a few canvases I made at a Working with Handmade Papers class at Plaza Arts in Nashville. It was taught by Beth Grub. I took this class with 4 other friends to spend the the day celebrating our friend Boo's birthday.

The first thing Beth said was "just come up and pick out some paper, and let the paper speak to you."  I looked at my friend Robin like "WHAT THE HELL?" I thought oh boy I am going to hate this, but I started going through and touching all this beautiful paper, and then Beth said to us "what do you want to make?" I decided on a doggie, and of course it would have to be a pink doggie, and I was off.....I do NOT do messy, but by lunch time my hands were covered in paint & mod podge! This unlocked something in my soul - to create something from nothing!

I started with the little pink doggie on canvas piece you will see below, the did the cherry blossom canvas, the heart canvas and finally the pink glittery mat board with flowers. I got to walk around with my friends who know MUCH MORE about art than I do and glean their knowledge about art supplies and more. It was fabulous! I came home with a big bag of mixed media goodness and my four projects. But much more than that I came home with the ability to get "messy" to let go and just have fun, to create again. I hadn't done that in a long time!

Supplies used were: paint (various brands), mod podge, liquid glues, handmade papers from Black Ink Papers, Canvas, Mat Board, CR Gibson Scrapbook papers and various brushes.