The altered book is an art form in which artists recycle or transform existing books into new works of art through words, memorabilia, paints, draws, gesso, glue, stamps, paper, thoughts and a lot of excitement! While altering a book you will add your own work of art. You can cut niches, add pictures, images, fiber, ribbon, lace, ephemera, beads, etc. You can tear away pages, glue them, use collage, photomontage, writing or anything else you want and you also might opt to incorporate words, text, or images from the existing book, or not. There are no rules, it´s just a way to express yourself. First example
In this example I worked with a second hand Disney´s “Bambi” book and worked it as if it were a notebook. In this case, I just glued some pages and used some collage techniques by layering and adding images, papers and three-dimensional objects. I also have written a story and add over the book´s text. I thought of recreating Disney´s fantasy in my own words mixing other elements that are part of my own life. I chose not to tear pages in this case as my book wasn´t thick, but I insist you should not hesitate on tearing a book page. You can spread a thin coat of gesso to prepare a base for you to write on or you can just print , cut and glue your words to the pages. Go ahead, all you have to do is to put aside some images, papers, photos and scrapbooking embellishments and try!
Another example of an altered book which is almost a notebook is my Inspired by Amélie notebook. This book was altered with the intention of serving as an idea inspiring book. For this book, I used the front and back covers from the a children´s hard cover book - Golden Book and added pages and files from other sources… For the cover, I added small pieces of patterned paper and painted everything with acrylic paint. Next, I added other layers, basically, using collage. All you have to do is take off the covers, separating them from the pages. Then you can use a crop-a-dile to make holes and insert other pages. Gather them up with whatever you want. It can be ribbon, folder rings, clips, etc.
The last example I wanted to show you is one traditional altered book where I worked the freedom-beach theme. It´s called Sunshine Bliss. In this book you can see some special techniques like shadowboxes, texture,and pop up elements.
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