It’s been a year, but I finally did some more pages in my altered book The Art of Happiness. The original text is by John Cowper Powys, copyright 1935. I found it at a barn sale in Sacramento over a year ago. The title was perfect; I knew immediately that I wanted to use this book to play with color and create spontaneous art that would make me happy. I wanted to try different color schemes than I would normally use, so for each double page spread I find a square of colors/textures from a magazine clipping and glue it to the page. Then I use the colors in that square as the inspiration for the art work. Not surprisingly to me, I have of course chosen patches of colors which I find appealing, so the colors that I’ve been using are ones I tend to gravitate to anyhow. However, I have used combinations of colors I wouldn’t ordinarily use, so that’s been challenging and fun.

I’ve been using F&W acrylic inks, watercolor crayons, pastels, and pencils, wax pastels, sharpie markers, and acrylic paint on the pages of this altered book. Although it takes me a while to find the poem and mask out the text, I try to work very fast with the art work. Unlike my other altered books, where I tend to have to do a lot of planning and contemplating prior to starting, in this altered book, I try not to over-analyze or think too much about what I’m doing. It’s nice to come back to this book in order to be a little less serious and a bit more carefree.