Elephants Dreaming

There seems to be a nasty bug running its course about the house. I live in fear, as anything I catch tends to go straight for my lungs with an axe.
On the up side, I've finished the Christmas project and Rey was kind enough to scan it in for me. Thorn's Christmas post has at last been made, but I'll repost the book itself here.

Cover
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7
Page 8
Page 9
Page 10
Page 11
Page 11B
Page 11C
Page 11D

The book was originally some children's hardcover picture book on ladybugs, which someone well-meaning person gave to Morri years ago. It was destined for the Goodwill box when inspiration struck. Putting gesso on the first page was an unnerving experience, but once I got past that it was fun. The pages were each coated in gesso, then acrylic paints, with some stamping. The calligraphy is all in india ink with a dip pen, and the poems are all originals from the Nexus 100 I never finished. I'm quite pleased. The piece on the cover is a large old button, painted up a bit with the back broken off. It has a wonderful old-fashioned look but is made of plastic. There's a few stickers, stamping, and some tea grounds mixed into paint on the cover as well.

This is my first successful attempt at altering a book. The calligraphy is on a horrible slant, which I am too lazy to do the whole thing over in order to correct, but I'll try a method to prevent that in the other pages. I may not post much of this here, as I intended it to be a Christmas gift and do not wish to ruin any more of the surprise than I already have. The poem is another meant to be written by Thorn, but it's one I'm quite pleased with. I should like to find a small feather to attach to the page to finish it off.

( Christmas )

I'm impatient to post this, and again my creative output for the day has been nonexistent. I suppose that's defeating the purpose, but nonetheless I shall post, and hopefully some day that is not busy my creative output will make up for things. This has struck awkwardly in the middle of some sort of mental block for writing.
( Read more... )

This remains unfinished, but I did work on it this evening and I'm pleased just to have gotten this far. I began this quite a few years ago, and left it with the sky half finished. Rey has been pestering me to finish it for ages. I no longer recall quite what I had in mind to begin with, and I think that I must have had some kind of help on the boat. I do not draw often at all, and I do not feel that I am very good at it, but I have a passable skill at still-life. I still need to colour in the... compass? Pocketwatch? I don't recall. I believe I had originally meant to put in stars as well, although I'm not sure how.
( sailing )

Again, not a writing assignment, but so long as I'm posting I consider the purpose of that idea fulfilled. The consideration of paying for this journal is quite serious. There's a particular layout I've had my eye on for some time, which is utterly gorgeous and artistically put together for me, available only to paid users. I find myself wishing for more icons and I am unwilling to play host to adverts for that purpose.
I have other writing assignments in mind, and I ought to do some book reviews for LibraryThing. I meant to do scrapbooking and I've collected a wonderful selection of supplies for doing so, even made some small test pages. I must cofess that now that I have a blank book at hand ready for tea-dyeing, and whatever other experiments I'd like to do upon it (I couldn't bring myself to mutilate an existing work of literature), the project is simply too intimidating as a start. While mulling over how to begin and re-reading some Kipling with a bit of tissue stuck between pages I hit upon a simpler idea. There are bookmarks in the house, although I never seem able to find them when I actually need one. Most of these are not mine, as people rarely give me bookmarks and I never think to buy one for myself. This last is hardly a complaint, as people tend to give me books instead. Bookmarks make for a simpler form of scrapbooking-altered art-whathaveyou. I'll probably make several more before I feel ready to tackle an entire book, but here are my first two attempts. I rather enjoyed the cutting and pasting, and I'm pleased with the results.
( cut for images )
Hrm. The image filenames make it look as though I'm doing a series by letter, but I think twenty-six would be a few too many. The animal pictures are cut from the backs of old calendars, bought specifically because I loved those pictures. The pictures on the beach bookmark are cut up bits of a single photograph, not one of my own but a shot of somewhere along VA Beach or possibly Nag's Head at dawn, taken by Morri or Bridgie. I'm rarely up at that hour, myself. It was a duplicate but I felt a bit nervous hacking it into bits regardless. There is something at once both intimidating and pleasing about the process of dismantling lovely pictures and bits of paper to create some new collage. I'll post more as soon as I come up with the time to make them.