As a I mentioned in a recent post, I’ve been rediscovering the art of altered books. These are turning out to be an ongoing source of inspiration to me in a number of different ways. These ways include:
- Seeing objects in a new light. I noticed the other day that the junk mail I had sitting in my recyle can was filled with colorful and decorative words that might go well in a page of an altered book. I pulled it out and started clipping. I also noticed that a pile of clothes planned for giveaway could be used as the fabric for book covers.
- Redesigning my creative space. Since I’m starting to save more things to be used in making altered book art, I’ve realized that I’d like to have my various art and writing materials more organized and accessible. This is something I’d always planned on as a kid when I dreamed of having my own art studio. I have the space now to make that a reality so I’m starting to work on it, slowly but surely.
- Writing inspiration. Visual art always helps me bring out themes for writing and that’s been even truer as I’ve explored the idea of putting one theme together on a page in collage form.
- Reading material. I’ve been reading a lot of altered art books lately and reading about art is always a source of new inspiration. Some books on altered art that you may want to pick up yourself include:
- Mixed Emulsions: Altered Art Techniques for Photographic Imagery
Altered Books, Collaborative Journals, and Other Adventures in Bookmaking
- The Altered Book Scrapbook
- Altered Books Workshop: 18 Creative Techniques for Self-Expression
- New Directions in Altered Books
- Altered Book Collage
- #5167 Altered Books 101
I’m currently playing around with my first altered book project. I went to the bookstore with a goal of finding a book for less than $5 to use as my starting point. The one I found is a small square book on Greek mythology. I’m playing around with methods of altering it and just kind of playing around with being creative. The book is going to be about the emotions and flaws that make up the heroes of mythology and the heroes of our own daily lives … and that theme turned out to be something that I pulled together in a recent short essay on fathers as heroes.
Question of the Day: What altered book artists can you recommend as a source of inspiration?
[Tags] altered, art, book, creativity, projects, craft, inspiration [/Tags]
March 21st, 2008 at 6:06 am
[...] ago that I was starting to get really interested in altered art. Specifically, I was looking at altered book art. However I was also just kind of getting inspired to start making more collages and doing more with [...]