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Altered Book {Intern Edition}: Work in Progress Preview 3


In the previous posts I described some of the attributes you may want to look for when selecting a children's book which to alter Altered Book {Intern Edition}: Work in Progress Preview 1 and then I gave a couple of research sources and tips on how to mix-media with traditional materials and organics in this post Altered Book {Intern Edition}: Work in Progress Preview 2.

In that last post I voiced my intention for the book. A sort of tribute from past experiences and resource for future interns working through an art therapy internship.

As mentioned before I'll be using nuggets of knowledge left behind from prior interns as well as more "inspirational" sorts of generic content that I ascribe as being helpful for the students to know/think about.






It is rare for me to use 1 media...maybe rarer still is for me not to think or work in layers (tho it happens at times). On the page-spread with the white daisy for example...

  1. Background
  2. Daisy image.
  3. Glue coat on the entire page (smoothing-out with a brush in the direction I want my 'cracks' to appear).
  4. Layered paint over the moist glue to achieve 'stress' cracks. Small micro cracks caused by the difference in drying speeds between the glue under layer and the paint above. 
  5. After that layer dried I came-back with white paint to selectively extend some of the white petals of the daisy towards the pages' edge. 
  6. And only then painting-in the selected message previously written on a post-it. 
  7. Ending with a layer of sealer or watered down paint in order to bring the layers and textures together.


On this other page-spread the design is deceptively simpler...



  1. Background (gesso)
  2. Blue acrylic paint 
  3. After the background was dry the message was written in white acrylic.
  4. Then the letters were outlined with a black sharpie pen. 
  5. The red sections are all torn tissue papper.
  6. A fibrous paper was layered over the tissue to give it a " stringy " effect.
  7. Brown details.
  8. Lastly, the page received a brown wash with a sponge to unify the components and give it more of the 'eeky' feeling i was going for...some words were 'polished' to keep them bright. 
And so it goes, while layers can be planned, it doesn't always work-out that way. I find that there's a fair amount of willingness and learning to 'let-go' that needs to take place whenever I am creating. It is part of processing through whatever is on my mind. Which is also what I try to instill on the students... MAKE ART because you want to... MAKE IT because you can... and because when all else fails it is your ART that will help you make sense of it.

I told a client last week: Cultivating flexibly allows us to adapt and respond to the curve balls.... and isn't that what art is all about?!

Next post I'll show & tell about another 2 page spreads where layering was stepped-up a notch with either collage materials (ie. magazine images) or traditional media (ie. paint, stains, inks, etc). 
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