Skinny Book Pages for Cloth Paper Scissors

I recently signed up for my first big collaborative book project. It’s the Skinny Book Swap that was mentioned in issue 13 of Cloth Paper Scissors (July/August 2007). I signed up through the Altered Abbey which is Chrysti Hydeck’s new online store and general website. We are to make 26 original skinny book pages (as opposed to the ubiquitous fat book pages which are 4×4, these are 8×4, which makes them “skinny”–Thank goodness I didn’t need to be skinny to sign up for the project hehe) and send them to Chrysti who will swap them out and bind them. There was an option for a well-embellished copies project as well, but I’ve never made copies of my art and wasn’t about to start now. So, I bit the bullet and signed up for the all originals project. I must say, right after my name was approved for the book, I started panicking, and haven’t really stopped since then, especially when I started recognizing the names of the other participants as those altered artists that I really admire. I’m not 100% I belong in their company just yet, but I suppose I’ll never get to the point where I AM sure I belong in their company if I never participate in these types of projects. Besides, Chrysti specifically said all levels of artists are welcome, as long as we don’t just slap a sticker on a piece of paper and call it done.

 Well, I have had all 26 backgrounds finished for a while now (I did started with patterned cardstock for some of them, but I went crazy from there; I added lots of gesso, acrylic paints, Ranger color wash sprays, used Punchinella as a stencil, etc. At this point no two of the pages look anything alike, even before I started embellishing them)

 This weekend, I wrapped up the first lot of 5 pages, which you can see here:

 

[Nothing spectacular about these. Well, except for the first slightly weird dreamscape (see below for the other one). ]

and here:

 

[I think the Autumn Leaves one might be my favorite so far. When I saw the background, that phrase just popped into my mind unbidden. So I just knew I had to use it. And this Dreamscape was just too weird not to be a dream! ]

Now obviously some of the same elements are repeated throughout (the mission embellishments I made from an Urdu newspaper and a rubber stamp, for instance) but no two pages are the same. I have had a lot of fun making these, and am still looking forward to the other 21 (ask me in a few weeks whether I’m still enjoying it after I’ve made a few more sets.)  I’ll upload the rest of the pages here as I complete them.

Here are two more from today:

[The man is a bit serious. His text says "He wished...for more peacful times" I cut him out of an Urdu paper and used some Urdu text for his "torso" a la Claudine Hellmuth . Then I gave him a quick spritz of a Ranger color wash spray. (remind me to tell you later about those; I'm sorry if I'm committing sacrilige but I'm not overly pleased with them so far...). I don't speak Urdu either (you're right if you sense a pattern here; see the French playing cards above...) but he just seemed to fit this piece so well; I sure hope I didn't end up taking him from an obituary or something...sheesh that would be morbid. The other one says "Flowers are good for the soul" and has two flower transfers; they didn't transfer completely, which I really liked, cause they look all distressed and vintagey.]

In other news, I also signed up for a holiday recipe journal project, which I haven’t yet started. For this one, I need to make 22 half sized pages with a vintage picture of a winter holiday on the front and a recipe on the back. Luckily for me the creators are counting Thanksgiving as a winter holiday so I have every intention of making all of my recipes Thanksgiving themed, although I may do a few Christmas ones since I also love vintage Christmas imagery. None of these are finished yet, but I will start a new post when they are ready.