Back to My Altered Books

Back to My Altered Books

The Art of Happiness :: Page 25

In the two months since my previous entry, I lost my wonderful mother, Sandie, to complications from Alzheimer’s, and my sweet little dog Angel, to blood clots in the lungs. Until just about two weeks ago, when we scattered my mom’s ashes, I had been walking around in a haze, unable to even think about making art. Slowly, I’ve begun to peel back the sadness and have restarted my artful journey.

I want to thank everyone from my Yahoo! Group who emailed me their kind words of support and empathy, as well as those of you who, through this blog, offered encouragement to me during my mother’s illness. You have no idea how helpful it has been over these last few months, to read your touching, heartfelt comments. Thank you so much.


I decided to do a few more pages in The Art of Happiness. Let me tell you a little bit about how I did page 25, which is pictured above.

As per usual, I first prepared the pages by painting on a thin layer of fluid matte medium to protect the text. After I had decided on the found poetry, I used my Masquepen to cover the words. I then drew and painted the orb on the left side using white acrylic paing. Next I covered the entire two pages with Lumiere acrylic paint in Sunset Gold, painting around the white circle.. After the paint was dry, I used the Masquepen again to draw lines over the orb and across the page. I knew that I was going to do a watery color wash over the pages, and I wanted to create the impression of golden threads.

When the Masquepen had dried, I wrapped the book with waxed paper and fastened it up with a rubber band so that only the two pages I was working on were exposed. I knew what I wanted to do would be wet and messy and that I needed to protect the rest of the book. I painted the pages using in turquoise and magenta. I placed several paper towels on my work space, ready to catch the drippings. Then I used the ink droppers and dropped turquoise and magenta FW acrylic inks onto the page. I used a small water spritzer and sprayed into the pools of ink; then, I lifted the book up and tilted it in different directions so the inks would run together and spread across the page. As the ink puddled-up at the bottom of the page, I blotted it with a paper towel. I used a toothbrush to splatter Pearlescent Acrylic ink in Magenta onto the pages, and also used my Pearlescent purple to drop some colors here and there. I sprayed each drop of ink with water and tilted the book. I also used a little red cocktail straw to blow the ink around the page.

I did have a problem with the ink pooling in the gutter of the book. I was worried that it would seep into the other pages, so I used my paper towels and dabbed up as much extra liquid as I could before it could sink in.

When the ink had dried, I peeled away the Masquepen to reveal the poem which says:
sew a thousand golden threads
over her dusty world

I’m happy with the way these pages turned out, even though it isn’t exactly what I expected. I was really hoping for more blueish gray to come through, similar to the color on the white circle and my color square. But I love the way the darker colors got trapped along the edges of the Masquepen. Maybe I’ll try this technique on a larger canvas or on water color paper. It sure was a lot of fun.

P.S. A quick tip — Once you have the Masquepen on the page, don’t close your book! The Masquepen will stick together and pull itself off. Don’t ask me how I know šŸ˜‰


Finding a Space for Art

In response to my post What Inspires Me, Heather wrote this:

. . . how do you just get started. I donā€™t mean the mechanics, I mean how do you just do it?

My husband and I bought a home three years ago and I have done very little creatively since then b/c I donā€™t have the space. I know that may sound like a huge copout, and I suppose it isā€¦but nevertheless it stops me in my tracks.

Where do you ā€œdoā€ your work?

Heather– I wouldn’t consider your space limitations a cop-out. They appear to be very real for you. I am very fortunate in that I have a spare bedroom in my house and that’s where I work.

One side of the room has my computer, phone, printer, and school related things along the wall on a big table that my husband built for me. It goes on top of two short file cabinets where I keep all my family related paperwork.

The other side of the room and most of the closet and walls have my art related things. I have two smallish tables against the wall and several stacks of de-wheeled Iris carts with lots of junk inside. I also have two shelves above the work tables that are stacked with paints and clear shoebox-style plastic containers that have labels like “nature bits,” “stamps,” “junk jewelry,” and lots of other ephemera that I collect.

Behind my door, I have a shoe organizer that’s stuffed with ribbon, lace, and yarn. I also have a book shelf with pizza boxes full of paper scraps organized by color and a file drawer with magazine clippings and collage sheets.

Now, as I describe this I know it sounds pretty organized, and on a good day, I am able to put everything in its proper place. But ask my husband– it never stays there for long. I couldn’t keep this room neat and tidy if my life depended on it. As soon as I start a project, out comes everything. Oh, I promise myself that after I’m doing using the gold paint from the gold and silver paint box that I’ll put it back on the shelf– but there it stays– on my work table piling up along with everything else I’m using until I’m working in a space about the size of a book. (At least the space isn’t the size of a postage stamp, although if I was altering a postage stamp, that’s probably all the space I’d have.)

So I really feel for your situation, I don’t know what art you like to do. I think some art is “smaller” that other art. Maybe, if you’d like to start altering a book, you could do one like my Altered Book Journal and just focus on using watercolor crayons inside. Then you just need the crayons, the book, a water dish, a paintbrush, some Masquepen, a pencil and notepad, some fluid matte medium, and a brush for that. It sounds like a lot, but you could probably fit all of it in one plastic shoebox thingy or a cardboard box that you stash in the corner of the closet when you’re not working. You could pull it out onto the kitchen table when you have a few quiet moments, work for a while, and then easily pack it up again (after letting the paint dry!)

I know I’m not much help. Maybe someone else can come to your rescue and give you some good advice. I think the hardest part is not always creating the space, it’s creating the routine. It’s giving yourself permission to not do anything else but art for just a little bit of time each day. I think once we get out of the routine, it’s sometimes hard to get back into it– almost like exercising. I remember when I used to run when I was younger. If I skipped a day, I felt very out of sorts, almost desperate to get back to it. That’s how I feel about doing my art now. If I can’t get to it, after a while I get very cranky.

Have you every heard of micro-movements? Sark talks about them in her books about living a creative life. The idea is to take tiny steps toward your goal. You can even download a copy of her process here Micromovement Sheet . Whenever I have a project that I’m avoiding doing, I try her technique. And sometimes, it works.


Altered Book :: The Art of Happiness

I just finished this altered book page for The Art of Happiness. I wanted to counteract the darkness of the text with something rich and colorful, and since I hadn’t used a purple color scheme in a while, that’s what I settled on.

First I covered the pages with a light coat of fluid matte medium. This helps to protect the paper when I apply the Masquepen. I have found that sometimes the Masquepen will lift the paper (and the text) right off the page if I don’t put down a layer of medium first. (You can read more about my Tips for Using Masquepen on my web site.)

After I had decided on the found poem, I used the Masquepen to cover the words, so they would be protected from the paint. I waited for that to dry. Then I used a light gold paint to cover the entire page. Afterwards, I painted different shades of copper and gold randomly across the page.

When that was dry, I used the masquepen again to make the stems and leaves of the flowers. I then painted the flower heads in shades of purple and covered those with masquepen as well.

Once the masquepen was dry, I applied a coat of pearlescent violet acrylic ink and some darker purple around the edges. Finally I was able to remove all the masquepen from the pages, and this is the result. The little flecks that you see in the image is the mica in the paint. I wish the contrast between the gold leaves and stems had been more dramatic, but this was a technique that I’d been wanting to try for a while, and I’m pretty happy with the result.


Trying to Find Happiness

The Art of Happiness :: Page 18

Now that the third quarter of the school year is behind me, I’m finding a bit of relief from the non-stop essay grading that was consuming all of my evening and weekend time. The 3rd quarter is when I relentlessly try to prepare my seventh graders for the Califonia STAR Writing Assessment, which is, in many ways a mockery of everything I try to teach my students about writing. They had one hour to read a two and a half page story and write a response to literature essay about it. One hour to read and analyze the text. One hour to plan, write, and proofread. No feedback. No peer editing. No revisions. How many people do you know (remember we’re talking about twelve year olds here) who could write a solid essay which traces the development of a character and analyzes theme in an hour? But no matter. It’s part of the state testing madness, where the ability to answer multiple choice questions or write a single draft of an essay are valued over trivial things such as creativity, problem solving, teamwork, and critical thinking, and the sheer joy of reading and discussing a piece of literature.

The rain is pouring down right now; a few minutes ago it was hailing. And when I opened the door and reached out my hand to touch the tiny white pepples of rain, the smell of battered anise floated over me.

I’m trying to make time now to work on my altered books again and have decided to do some more pages in the continuing saga of my Altered Book Journal :: The Art of Happiness . The two pages I just completed are not my favorites, but they’re something. The two colored squares I chose stretch my color complacency to the brink of disaster. But I feel the need to keep creating, no matter how I struggle with my art right now.

A big thanks to everyone who has written to me regarding my mom. Many have taken the time to let me know that I am not alone. Thank you for the encouragement, support, and reassurance. Even though you are all strangers, your words of comfort make me feel as though we are friends.


No Altered Books — No Art at All


Fear

How does one continue to create art when a big part of your life is unraveling? I know some people find that art helps them work through their grief, but I can’t seem to make it work that way for me.

As many of you who read my blog know, my mother has Alzheimer’s. Two weeks ago, she took a dramatic turn for the worse, refusing to eat or drink for four days, until my father was finally forced to admit her into the hospital. I spent five days in the hospital with her, holding her hand, talking to her, talking to doctors, nurses, dieticians, physical therapists, coaxing her to eat and drink. It was exhausting. In the middle of three art projects, I have been unable to pick up where I left off since I returned home. My mind constantly goes back to her, weak and wasting away with no desire to eat or drink. Sleeping most of the day. Falling asleep as I try to get her to eat another bite of vanilla pudding. Everytime she reluctantly takes a bite, she makes a terrible face, as though I had just fed her the most horrible tasting medicine in the world. And then she closes her mouth and shakes her head no; I try again later and the process repeats.

The doctor says that this is a normal progression of her disease. Her brain apparently is not receiving hunger signals from her body and her tastebuds no longer recognize even the foods she once loved. I sit next to her while she’s sleeping, holding her fragile hand. She wakes up and looks at me; I wonder whom she sees. She smiles and says hello and tells me that she loves me. When the nurses come in to take her blood pressure, she accepts their good-natured prodding, then looks at me and winks. She’s humoring them, afterall. That spark of life and wit — I cling to it until it disappears.

Then they discharge her, saying there is nothing more they can do for her in the hospital. As they remove the IV and the foley bag, I feel like I am watching them remove her life blood, and I suddenly long for the soothing beeping and light from the LCD screen.

At home, she spends most of her time sitting in her lounge chair by the window, sleeping, while we flutter around her trying to do useful things. I stay at my father’s house for as long as I can, but soon I have to return to my job and my family and my life at home. I kiss her on the forehead and tell her I love her and wonder if I will see her again. I’m glad to be leaving, thinking it will bring some relief from the sadness, and then immediately regret the feeling. When I’m away, I feel as though I’m abandoning her; when I’m there, I feel helpless.

It’s hard to get into a routine at home. My brain is fragmented. I have to be “on” in front of 145 seventh graders each day. I have to grade essays. I have to plant bulbs. I have to wash dishes and pay bills and make sure my son does his homework. There is no time and no inclination to pick up a paintbrush or open a book. Those projects have to wait.