I knew I needed to rip some extra pages out of the book, in order to help take the stress off of the binding, and normally would have done that before any other step. But… ripping out pages was not something I could just sit down and do. Not even with this book that I’ve spent so many years hating.
I decided to started slowly. First strip the title. Then get some color on the pages. Make it less THAT book and more MY book. I think that was a smart idea because ripping out the pages was easy. Mindless. And, every now and then – I’ll admit it – fun.
As I ripped, I’d see words and phrases that ticked me off all over again. Altering book is exactly the right thing for me to do. I’m enjoying it. Every second of it. (And isn’t it funny that I’ve started this project during Banned Book Week?)
So here’s where I am now. The book has a new title. A little less than half of the pages have been ripped out, (I’ll be using some of these pages within the project), I’ve played with chalk, oil, acrylic, water color pencils and with gluing pages together. I’ve glued about ten pages together because I’m planning a cut out section (thus the mermaid in the shot above.) I think ten pages isn’t enough and I’ll probably have to glue another ten to get the look I want. For now, I’ve got it rubber banded to help keep the pages together as the glue dries. Tomorrow, I’ll see how it looks and glue some more… then it will be time for gesso – that will be awesome.
Neat! I love this idea!