Altered Book Experiments and More

I just finished another pen and ink commission and have 3 more waiting to be started.  Commissions are good.  Lack of time to play and experiment makes me sad. Spring Break is in two weeks! I'm hoping that that break will give me a boost of motivation!  This dreary, rainy weather has me in a funk this weekend.  So I thought I would post a picture of my pink dog sculpture to add something whimsical.  As a project in one of my classes, we made sculptures out of plaster strips.  As a demo for the project, I created this dog.  I didn't take pictures as I created her.  She looked pretty rough at first and I didn't think she would make it to the final stage, but I think the pink color and the face added just what she needed.  Some of my students named her Rex, but we later decided on Roxy after she was painted pink! Later I will post a picture of some of their projects, if they want them posted online.

Another project that we are working on is Altered Books.  I was able to get ahold of some old books that were being discarded from the library.  I collected several stacks with the idea of doing a class project with altered art books.  I'm showing a few shots of the altered book that I have been working on.  My advanced art class is working on this altered book project as an ongoing project for the rest of the semester, as they have time. I am trying to work on one with them, when I have a little time.  They see me working on projects that they do and that helps to inspire them with what they can do with their books. They also inspire me, so it works both ways.  This is a new medium to me and it reminds me alot of mixed media collage, but in a book format.  I have seen some examples that artists used a journals along with their artwork.  So it looked pretty interesting to me and I hope to finish it, but it may take awhile, with all of the other projects that I need to be working on.  I'll post more photos as I go.

The first photo shows the book cover that I have already painted.  I plan to add some more things to the cover later.  The second photo is the inside of the back of the book that I painted.  The old library checkout card and pocket are painted also.  I didn't want to remove them. I wanted them to be part of the art.

Thanks for looking!

Beth♥