An Altered Book

I’ve long fancied the idea of making an ‘altered book’, and have finally made a start on one!

I chose a slim volume for my first endeavour – a little book of poetry for children, written in Greek….

I started pasting the pages with gesso and was soon drawing into them with luscious Inktense pencils….

and acrylic ink on a stick…..the gesso and matt medium covered pages form a lovely resist to the watercolour added later….

Am not sure quite what this book’s about….it seems to be turning into a place to play….

a creative place to try out unfamiliar materials and explore new ways of working….

a place to get away from the fear of ‘spoiling the page’ that often arises with a posh sketchbook…

Somewhere to really mix up the media and combine text & line with gesso, ink, watercolours, crayons, wax and acrylics…

I’m re-visiting some familiar images and re-purposing existing sketches….

as well as drawing completely from memory & imagination….which is a lot of fun and makes a change to continually drawing from observation….I love the way bits of the original poems show through here and there….