Altered Book #2: "Extraordinary Seeing"

I know it has been a long time coming, but I finally finished my second altered book contribution! I technically should be on my 4th book, but it's hard to coordinate 12 different artists across the country to all be on time! :-) Hopefully I will receive my next book soon!

So this book's cover was a drawing inspired by the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti. The quote on the front said: "Look Within. You are the world." I went online and found a huge archive of quotes and teachings by Krishnamurti and decided to use pieces of a quote in my pages. The quote I found was pretty long, so I just took a few lines from it and designed my art around the concept of the quote.

I started by drawing a body on the pages and using an acrylic wash to add color. Since this quote was about the mind, I chose to doodle a little brain. :-)

Then I added the title, which I got from the quote. "Extraordinary Seeing". I also added some crumpled brown paper (which I had left over from my wedding!)
Finally, I did some stamping and painting to the brown paper to give it some interesting effects.
Here are some pictures of the final piece. I really like how it turned out, and I sort of wish I didn't have to send it away! I am starting my next project which is the large carnival wedding cut out for my sister-in-law's wedding in August. I will definitely post photos of that insane process!!

"Extraordinary Seeing"

"Astonish" - The altered book journey begins...

Today is the day that I ship my altered book away! I finished up the final touches on the cover and the sign-in page last night! Nothing like leaving it to the last minute! But I think it turned out pretty neat!

My initial cover idea involved covering the book with an old handkerchief and collaging pieces of a skeleton cutout that I found at our local Uncle Fun store. The book covered well but I sat on the skeleton idea. It was a large piece and I wasn't too thrilled with how the layout turned out. Lucky for me later that week I found some skull fabric that I absolutely adore! So that became my new cover design.

I wanted some sort of title for this book that would carry through all of the unknown artwork that was yet to come. With the skulls on the cover, it sort of took on an anatomy theme. Anatomy is astonishing to me, and so the word stuck. I found some scrabble-like letter squares and went to work! "Astonish" became the title of this altered book.

Astonish - Book Cover

I decided to go with the anatomy theme for the start of this book and brainstormed what to do on the title page (you know, the page that usually only contains the title inside the cover). I thought about what astonish meant in the context of this book. This book was going to be visually astonishing, so I started doodling some eye cells (rod & cones) and came up with a simple title page design.

The skull fabric that wrapped around the cover was just a tad too short to fit perfectly on the inside, but a happy accident occurred when I realized that one skull was appropriately cut off at the skull cap! Using red thread I tried my best to make it look like I was sewing the skull cap back on! :-)

Inside Cover & Title Page

Artist Sign-in Page

I mail the book this afternoon to the next artist on the round robin list. I'm hoping I will receive my first book to work on before I leave for Florida on Saturday. I'm so anxious to see the other books!! There are about 14 artists in this round robin, so this project will last more than a year. Each artist gets a month to complete their portion of each book.
I will try to post in-process pictures of my artistic contributions to the books, but for sure you will see the finished products each month. Stay tuned!!