Filling the Niche

I was so surprised when I saw Sharon's tiny book on her web site, cause this is what I have done to put into the niche. Great minds definately think alike! This tiny book is 3.25 X 2.75 inches. In keeping with my theme, I made the cover from distressed and dyed strips if linen. The strips were woven and them painted with acrylic medium to make them durable. Then the cover was cut from this sheet.

I had gessoed and covered the book in the first week, but couldn't come up with an inside. After I came back from my brother's funeral, it just seemed to flow. Each of the 4 2-page spread is a close-up photo of a degrading surface. I added a verse from Jim Croce's song "Time in a Bottle" to each page and then carefully cut the holes in each page to allow the little bottle to show through. Inside the bottle is the word "TIME" repeated on a curled paper. (More photos at the group's photo album)

Orphaned Spreads

These two spreads have been semi-finished for a while, but awaiting finalization.

Pocket Page: The layering on this page creates 2 sets of pockets in each quadrant. I am a great fan of quotations so the tags have quotes on decay and art. It took a long time to find just the right tree-of-life for the center. I made the tags in the shape of 19th century coffins and used the crackle medium to "age" them.

They were way too time consuming. I would have liked to have more tags cause the pockets seem empty - maybe Leslie will make some of her own to keep these company.

Incorruptibles: This one is about all those saints bodies that don't decay - which is what helps to make them saints. I used a glazing technique from the Altered Books Workshop book. This advised using a warm-cool-warm-cool layering. I don't care for how it came out, too dark and brooding. This page also still needs some sort of "punch". To me it seems sort of dull.

Into the Home stretch 1

I've got a bunch of new stuff! Several spreads have been "in the works" waiting for this or that extra thing. I read a bit more about the inks I use and they take up to 2 weeks to permanently dry! So, I will be adding slip sheets of wax paper or tracing paper. I've been mulling over how to photograph the finished book so that all the danglies and such show up. The scans are great for page detail, but it doesn't capture the full effect of the page. Any tips on technique - especially from you photographers out there would be greatly appreciated.

Neanderthals: This spread is inspired by a neanderthal burial in Turkey that included a garland of flowers. It was so touching to know that they had a sense of an afterlife. The technique uses acrylic gel with pumice stone suspended in it. The figures were all printed on wrapping tissue. This is far thinner stuff than the tracing tissue I've used before. Tracing tissue is crisp and holds up well to adhesives. The wrapping tissue is quite delicate and sort of dissolves into the background medium. This makes it very hard to glue. The trick to it that I figured out is to only apply glue to half the item, place it, fold back the unguled portion and then apply the glue.

I am very pleased with this spread. It really captures the illusion of firelight on a cave wall.

The Anglo Saxon burial

One more done! I'm starting to feel December 5th bearing down on me like a locomotive. In this spread I used aluminum flashing foiled with gold to make "artifacts". That was fun but WAY too time consuming. The foiling is a lot of wait to dry, wait, wait, wait, now hurry up and get the foil on before the adhesive dries too much. I think real gold leafing would be easier.

I am also exploring pop-ups. The picture isn't great cause I wanted to catch the pop-up but my scanner bed is too narrow for a full double page and the pop-up too.

I've finally come up with a title; "The Undiscovered Country"

Half way point!...meanwhile high in the Andes...

This was a big spread. 3 pages. My big problem is drying the acrylic medium. Even when it feels dry, I've clamped up the book only to have pages stick togther. Now I put wax paper between every page.

On this set of pages I used tinted gesso and "stucco" medium to evoke rock faces high in the mountains. The background images were done on tissue (luv that tissue) using the "fade" option in "Picture-It".

The beads on the fringe are made from cloth saturated with glue and rolled around a straw, then the little beads were sewn on. The heads are Celluclay formed with a push-mold. Who-ever told me about using baby powder for a release agent - THANKS - it worked perfectly. The hardest part was waiting for the celluclay to dry...it took DAYS. I am an impatient person, its hard to just leave it alone and not noodge with it.


The torn edges are stuccoed so that they seem like flakes of rock. The fringe is a piece of silk that's been mostly unravelled. Its glued in between sheets of the section.