Thursday, November 29, 2012

Altered Book Art Journal

I've seen some REALLY cool art journals made from altering & re-purposing an old book. The problem is all the tutorials I've seen have called for gesso... Which I don't have & since my current art supply budget is about $2 a month >.>  I had to think of a way to improvise...

For my poor man's altered book journal I used:
* cheapest Apple Barrel acrylic paints
* masking tape
* watercolours
* ink pads
* discard book from library

I got a $1 hardcover book from the library's used book store They sell discard books & books that people have donated... I love books so it took me about an hour to find one that was a) the right size/shape b) sturdy enough and c) one I wouldn't feel guilty about ripping up & painting on o.O  lol I spent a lot of time in the diet & "politics" sections..

altered book

This is what the book looked like after it was reincarnated into my journal :)
The book was originally a dull blue so I used  some blue acrylic & shimmery watercolours to brighten it up

When I was putting my name on it, I accidentally put it on the back cover so now the text on the inside pages is upside down. But actually, I like it because now the text in the background of the pages look more abstract. :)

I ripped out about 1/3 of the pages & then went thru & taped the remaining ones together with masking tape in groups of 3 to make thicker pages. I also put masking tape in the center of most spreads to help prevent pages from falling out & keep paint from seeping into the middle. 

I only had three colours of acrylic paint (pink, blue & white) so I experimented a bit combining them with watercolours since I have more of those.

watercolour over white acrylic + bubble wrap texturing

I really like the effect of watercolours over dry white acrylic. It's kind of dreamy

watercolour over white acrylic 

watercolour over white acylic


watercolour over white acrylic, inked edges & stamp
 Look at the  difference between the orange over the acrylic covered page & over the naked masking tape in the middle! This is one of my favourite pages :)



watercolors over acrylic... giant bubble wrap!

white acrylic, watercolours, ink pad & spider stamp!

Painting over the white acrylic obviously makes the colours much lighter.. so on the left side of this spread I left some space free of the acrylic. It came out nice & black.. but it seeped thru all three pages :{  That didn't happen on pages that were completely covered w/ the acrylic paint so I think if I want really black pages, I will need to find some black acrylic. I used a black ink pad to make the edgers darker.


Another attempt to try & get a darker background.. this time I used the blue acrylic as the base & built up layers of black watercolour over it.

The top right corner is scotch tape which I coloured w/ permanent marker & then partially scrapped off. 



acrylic, inked bubble wrap, magazine image & stickers

This is my other favourite page. I had been saving this image from an issue of Gothic Beauty, and when I mixed this dusty purple colour it just seemed to work perfectly with it. I added some red heart stickers to tie in with her outfit.


I also added graph paper to several pages.. I taped 'em in with masking tape so I could paint over the edges & blend them in with the background.

pink & white acrylic, masking tape & graph paper


I am TRYING to leave some of the pages bare for  ideas I might have when I'm actually using the journal... but it's hard to resist the blank pages!







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