Archive for the ‘altered books’ Category

Magnet Book

magnet book

Unfortunately I don’t have more/better pics of this – I was putting the finishing touches on it up until the last minute so I didn’t have as much time to document. This is the altered book I made for my mom, based on her suggested theme of how we create our own reality. Also, she wanted a book that could stand up on the table. I interpreted this very abstractly and mostly stuck to the “display book” side of things and just made it pretty…but the “frames” of the book are magnetic, so all those little thingies can be stuck on/arranged…you know…creating your own reality? Maybe?

Sadly, those magnetic sheets you can get wherever aren’t particularly strong, so once the magnet was papered over it became kind of difficult to actually get stuff to stick to it. Stronger magnets (like those ones shaped like thumbtacks) fare a little better. Cool idea that works better in theory than practice (although I may try it again someday if I can get stronger magnets).

My mom likes Tomb Raider so that’s what that magnet is about. ;)

Hopefully everybody had a good holiday – I got a cold for Christmas so I’m glad I was hoarding one last sick day (hopefully it doesn’t take too much longer to recover!). I feel “OK” right now, but I felt “OK” for the past two mornings and then I’d deteriorate rapidly as the day went on so I thought I’d play it safe. Maybe if I feel well enough to sit up I’ll make another journal vid – I got one of those little flip video cameras, which I am excited about (and wasn’t expecting!).

work in progress

altered book in progress

Working on my mom’s Christmas present. Yes I have 3 days. D: ha ha
I am going to be a little quiet over the next week since I’m working on this and another secret project, plus the whole Christmas thing. But I’ll be back!

Altered Book Comp/finding time

I went to the “casual artists’ reception” for the altered book thing – it was a little awkward ’cause I didn’t know who to talk to but everybody was very nice. I only stayed for like half an hour because I had dance class but as I was leaving I was told that originally They were only going to put the top 3 books in the special collection, but They liked them all so much that all the books will be offered a spot. I like my book but I’m not THAT attached to it – so yay, I’ll be in the special collection. I’m not sure what that means – probably that they’ll be shoved in a vault somewhere and never see the light of day again, but still, it sounds neat.

So that’s that!

My brother is coming up tomorrow night and I’m going to DC this weekend; I’m working on my costume and my dancing and also I go to some job 5 days a week. I’m usually That Overachievery Girl Who Has Time for Everything but lately I find myself with far too little! I make up for it by carrying around a notebook – not something I’ve ever done before since I have a pretty good memory, but I currently don’t have the time to dump everything on the page at the end of the day like I used to. So now I just do it throughout the day. It’s working pretty well actually – I have tons of fragment-seeds that are growing in mah brainz. I’m OK with the lack of time because I’m just doing other things right now – I’ll come back to my journals and books soon enough. :)

Altered Book Comp

I just got an email letting me know that my altered book has been selected to be in the library’s exhibit (along with like 50 other ones), which I assume means I didn’t place top 3, booo (there were sweet prizes for the top 3). But I get to be in the exhibit which is neat – I’ll stop by and see what the top 3 look like. No I did not google-stalk the other email addresses the message was sent to in order to retroactively check out the competition, why would you even say that. But, based on my not-stalking, it does appear that several For Real Artists also entered so I’m pleased to even be with them in the exhibit!

Altered Book: I C

…aka the worst title ever, but what can ya do. Check out the flickr set for all of them, but here are a couple pics. In general I’m pleased with it, but I really wish I had more time — it feels a little unfinished to me.

Page 1
The eyes have velcro backing and can be switched around.

Page 2 Detail

Page 4 Detail

Page 5 Detail

Page 5 Detail
I won’t lie, I love these eyeball supermodels. Although making their outfits was super tedious because they are pretty small.

Page 8
My biggest beef is with this page – the plastic across the maze is a little too tight and/or the ball is a little too big, so sometimes it gets stuck and doesn’t roll around like it should. I really wanted to fix it but I would have had to rip out the entire thing and I just didn’t have time. Oh well!

Page 8 Detail

I mentioned in the last entry that the book itself really influenced the outcome – I came to it with a single idea (the first two pages, where you could see the eye through the hole…thing) but after that the ideas just came out of nowhere and fit surprisingly well with the text. Things like that give me the weird feeling that the piece has a life of its own and wants me to bring it into existence. I feel a little pretentious saying such a thing about a piece like this that isn’t really “serious,” but we need “not serious” things just as much as we need “serious” things amirite?