lauantai 28. helmikuuta 2015

The Mojo Wheel

I'm posting this altered book (or actually just the cover of it) for the VLVS February challenge (colour wheel, torn edges, stiches, watercolor...) and the SimonSaysStamp Monday and Wednesday challenges (anything goes on both of them). Warning: the rest of this post tells of making this project and is quite long :)


When I bought this tree circle stamp from VivaLasVegaStamps!, I planned to make a spin wheel of it. At some point in December I got started on the project, but I realized it wouldn't fit on the cover of my art journal as I had thought, and I decided to accept that the piece of veneer I had cut out would be an UFO (UnFinished Object). I actually even decided my next VLVS challenge project would be CAS... and then the February challenge came out, and I realized I would have to find the tree wheel -piece and find something to mount it on.

I went to the exchange-shelf at our local library (a small bookshelf, where anyone can bring and take books as they please) and chose a well bound large book on political history: I wanted to not be interested in the contents at all. I go to a craft class for fixing old furniture once a week, and I took my project there. The teacher helped me out with the materials, gave me some bearings from his stash and laughed that it was the first time anyone in his classes has worked on a book. Here's the pile of ingredients well under work:


The tree circle was first scetched on a piece of veneer and cut out. My craft teacher told me to brush over it with full fat milk and let dry , after which the piece could be painted with water colours. I wondered if clear gesso would do the same, but did as I was told. The tree circle was stamped with Versafine Onyx Black and then the piece was sprayed with a clear varnish. The hole in the middle was first round (the size of the hole in the bearings) but after choosing the bolt, I used a file to make the hole square so it fits. At this point the book cover has a hole in it, and after this picture I made a niche by clamming two thirds of the pages between some veneer and drilling a hole about an inch wide through the "package". It needs to be quite deep to house the bearings and screwstuff.


Here is a picture of the "sandwich" of technology to be applied. Since the niche was already made, I couldn't show it with the hole. The veneer image is outside the book, bearings in between spacer disks on both sides of the book cover and a nut on the inside. Everything fastens on a bolt (The screwing threads on the bolt had to be continued deeper in, and it had to be sawed shorter and filed to shape...I would never have got this done at home, but I did do it myself with the tutoring and tools available at the craft class!)


I thinned out the remaining pages: Out of four consequent pages I removed the middle two and glued the first and last together. I used a glue stick for this, and because that is obviously not the strongest medium, I sewed through the resulting pages. You can see the threads and the structure in this picture, where I have covered the book cover with pieces of torn paper and layers of white and clear gesso.


I started colouring the cover with water colours, and continued with Derwent Artbars and Inktense pencils. The colours follow the order in which I always arrange my colour pencils (starting with lemon yellow and ending with white). The doodling between the colour areas has been done with a Sakura Micron pen, as have the different technique options along the sides. I had some trouble with part of the doodles- the pen doesn't write on the waxy artbar- so the writing along the edges was done on tissue paper and decoupaged with Glue n' seal. I left a couple of sections empty, in case I run into something I really feel I must add, or to be counted as a prompt to try something weird. Actually my mojo has been fine lately, and I don't expect to need help to figure out what to do... But my thought was, that I could start with a colour, say purple. When the wheel has spun, the place where the purple tree has stopped would give me a technique and the colour of tree at the purple section could give me another colour etc.

To finish of the colour theme of this book I painted the spreads according to the same distribution as the front: from yellows to white. My array of acrylic paints is quite limited, so I'm proud I managed to produce the colours this well. All I have is a set of primary colours and a few metallics, but I blended in inksprays when necessary, and this is ok.  The first spread holds the niche (with a turning screw and nut) and if you want to see what I did with it, you can check here. Otherwise (for the time being) I believe I'll enjoy the pages as they are, using them as colourful backgrounds for photographing cards and ATCs. I plan to add interest and texture to them when I happen to buy new paints or mix a suitable colour for other projects, simply applying more layers either with a brush or through stencils.


The name of the book was written with the Steampunk letter -series (that just arrived yesterday, as my supersale package made it across the ocean!) I stamped with Versamark, embossed with black embossing powder, coloured the letters and added Glossy Accents. When it was dry I continued the colouring process with pearlescent ink sprays... They were really beautiful, but I didn't count for what a mess of colours would be created when I adhered them to the book (the colours on the book are all watersoluble and so is Glue'n Seal...) after quite a bit of rubbing and wiping and adding new colour to the book the result is nice and grungy, though no sign of pearlescent pastels anywhere :)



2 kommenttia:

  1. This book is AMAZING! I absolutely love everything about it! I am a color-holic, so of course I adore your use of colors. I love how you've made them in a sunburst type of pattern with little doodles between them. The color wheel is brilliant and yes- you did do an incredible job of creating all those shades with only a few paint colors to start with. I love that you named this, "Book of Mojo" and putting the title on the spine was such a clever addition. You did a fantastic job on this and I'm so grateful that you decided to share your talents with us for this week's Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge!

    VastaaPoista
  2. WOW this altered book cover is fabulous, love the all the colours.
    Thank you for joining us at Simon says Stamp Wednesday Challenge.
    Luv
    Debby

    VastaaPoista