Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Work in progress


altered_mag, originally uploaded by e14studio.

It's not a journal; it's not an altered book. When I purged all the papers and collage material in the studio recently, I confronted a mountain of magazines and decided that my next project will be an altered magazine.

Here is a great way to use up all those art supplies I've been meaning to use someday. Well that someday is today!

I began by adhering several pages together and created 7 two-page spreads inside the magazine. I worked in spurts to let the glue dry before I grouped more pages together and glued them. The next step was to gesso pages and splash colors with acrylic paints. Here, again, I was working with left over supplies and it gave me the opportunity to use up alot of colors I mixed that were going to dry up if I didn't do something with them. On top of that I added images from the stacks of papers I sorted through and played around with the elements: colors, shapes, type, & texture.

Here is where I'm at so far. I will be layering more on top of these pages. I want to keep it spontaneous and not over think each article I glue down. I'll be working intuitively and best of all when I'm done I'll have a finished project that contains all those scraps of material I've kept stored and hidden away in boxes, bins and drawers.

The theme for the piece is: take what you've been given and make it your own.

4 comments:

bird's eye view said...

Reading a magazine is usually so passive.
What a great way to turn the tables!

Does the glue/gesso process make the pages translucent? And how do you keep the spreads separated while they dry?

Cheers,
Wren

Unknown said...

You can still see some of the magazine print and images under the coating of gesso & paint. But to tell the truth, it's quite messy. The pages will curl and wrinkle and I just go with the flow. In between drying I keep the piece standing upright and use clothes pins to keep the pages stuck on each other and separate from the rest of the magazine.
~SH

paris parfait said...

Very creative! Thanks for your lovely comments on my blog. I've had a quick look at yours and love all the artsy, creative bits! I'll be back!

Maddie Can Fly said...

Thanks for the comment on my blog. Love the altered magazine idea. I am a magazine junkie and am slowly drowning in them also. Can't wait to see more it it.