Blue Book

Not long ago, I bound watercolor paper into an altered children's book, one of those grade school primers.  The cover was originally blue (still is), I used blue/purple shiboried fabric on the spine, and covered the inside covers with blue/purple painted paper.  So my intention from the get-go was to paint the pages in blues and purples ~ and that's what I did a couple days ago.

Actually, all the pages are Gelli printed.  This was an experiment in Gelli printing on a handmade journal without taking the pages out first.  The pages here are 7-1/2 by 5-1/2 inches (spreads are 11 inches wide).  Mostly I used my method of scraping paint on the plate first and printing off that by simply turning the book over onto the plate and burnishing with my hands.

I like this technique quite a bit.  Some of the pages have more diffuse patterns largely because of the paper I used -- it is 140# cold press watercolor paper from Blick/Fabriano (way different from just Fabriano).  I remembered when I printed that these were my last pieces of this paper, that I won't use it again.  It has too much sizing in it, and the cold press is really textured.  Which is fine for some things, but not to collage on in art journals.  I've since moved to better paper and hot press for the smoothest texture.

What you're seeing here are some of the best printed pages, which I'll most likely leave as is.  The more diffuse spreads are being collaged on, virtually as we speak.

Jane Davies' Dynamic Composition online class started today -- I've downloaded my first lesson already -- so I'll probably be focusing on painting for the next couple months.  With my usual other creative activities on the side ~ collage, art journaling, and mail art.