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The River Runs Black
Altered Books are old unwanted books given a new life as a work of Art.
The book to be altered can be anything from an old child's storybook to an unwanted out of date scientific text book...or anything in between! Make sure the binding is a strong one and the paper is also strong enough to take glue, paint and for cutting holes for hidden secrets.
Sometimes the theme of an Altered Book is taken from the title of the original and sometimes it is totally unrelated.Either way it is a lot of fun and great to share with other artists as they too can add pages of artwork to Altered Books, thus sharing their ideas and artwork in a magical way.
Painting,cutting and pasting predominate but there are no rules and no right or wrong way to complete an Altered Book....try it...it is great fun...and something the whole family can share in ...even several generations!
Inside front cover of Gertrude's Grimoire a book of Spells,Faerie & Fantasy
Each page has an owl hidden on it somewhere...The owl is Gertrude's familiar and keeps watch over the Grimoire.
Front Cover of Gertrude's Grimoire (Gertrude was my Great Grandmother and I think she would enjoy this)
Gertrude's Grimoire is the first of several Altered Books now in progress,come back often to see what the newest pages have to tell.A Grimoire is often defined as a Book of Shadows,a Book of Spells or a Book of Mystery...you decide.
Title Page for Gertrude's Grimoire
The paper here is a strange green and I added purple watercolour to add mystery.A Grimalkin is a cat with tendencies to nastiness if crossed.
The Enchanted World.
This is the right hand page of a double page spread celebrating Enchantment..after all...isn't Life just Magic?
The Enchanted World -left page
Dragons, wizards,ladies of the lake along with magical beasts of all kinds make up an Enchanted World.
The Elve's Caprice
The title for this page almost named itself from the old fragment of music-it was titled the Elve's caprice ...so what could I do ?The elves are full of mischief and capriciousness while the Fairy Queen watches quietly.
Mirror Mirror on the Wall...
The mirror is inset into several following pages which are as yet unfinished..great fun,this page is on the right page to the Money Spell and is intended to complement it.
Money Spell
Get rid of Bad Luck with Money with this Spell.One of a series featuring roses...the flower of the Good Witch.
Cover of My Art Journal
My Art Jounal holds all my ideas for future projects,samples from colour combinations and anything I think may inspire me later.The cover theme is Woman..The Earth Mother.
Bewitching and beguiling
Godesses good and bad feature on this page.History shows us the many faces of woman and here are just a few of them.
To catch a Prince
First find a frog and then repeat this spell.
The wonders of Magic
The mystery and the Magic.Isn't life wonderful!.My grandaughter Sarah helped with this one.
The "Bookworm" is a fun Altered Book Sculpture I did for our Local Library.It is 6feet long and about 24" wide and high.I used all library discards that had some damage.I made all the flowers with paper and the greenery is nylon scourer and silk leaves.It is digitally coloured for this image and to give him some "atmosphere'.
The Hidden Muse is dedicated to all our Altered Book Artists out there.The Muse is a digital transfer done with turps and over printed with onion bag dipped in black acrylic over gold.