Altered Book (Art)
general journal junk
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idealog
You will need:
- Old or damaged books
- Gesso / Watercolour ground
- Paintbrushes
- Collage materials - magazine cutouts, decorative paper, newspapers, junk mail, etc.
- Various art and writing supplies, such as watercolours, acrylic paints, pastels, coloured pencils, writing pens, etc.
- Adhesives, Mod Podge, Acrylic gel medium
Intro:
There are multiple different ways to alter a book for a different use. I'm not going to get into the junk journal aspect of doing this. That is well-covered elsewhere on the internet as it's quite a popular method of altering books. I am going to talk about something that was done in the novel The Book Thief instead.
Let's get the lengthiest bit out of the way first.
Do:
- Cover each facing pair of pages in gesso. The most common colour is white, but there are other options. You can also tint the white gesso to whatever colour you prefer.
- Be mindful that using gesso will make a surface best suited to either collage or the use of acrylic paints.
- If you prefer to use watercolour paints or pencils, you are better off adding a layer of watercolour ground on top of the gesso. Watercolours won't adhere to acrylic-based gesso.
- You will need to wait for these pages to dry completely before covering the next pair.
- You can do this all at one time if you prefer, or only a few at a time so you do have something to create on when you feel inspired.
- Once done, you now have a unique place to create your future works.
You may want to decorate the cover as well:
- Make sure the cover of the book is clean.
- Remove all stickers and labels. This isn't required, but it might make some future parts of this easier.
- Choose materials that appeal to you to cover the book in whatever way suits you.
- You can recover the book in a more traditional fashion.
- If you choose to cover the cover in collaged items or paints, you can then seal that with Mod Podge or acrylic gel medium so it's waterproofed and protected from other damage.
Notes:
- You can choose to cover just parts of a page with either the gesso method, collage method, or similarly to what was done in the book A Humament, cover everything on the page but some select words. Those words can then function as prompts for future creations you do on those pages.