I've started my next altered book, this time I've glued some pages together, added torn paper scraps, scrunched up paper napkins, pieces of muslin, anything that will help created a texture. I've used gel medium to attach the texture materials to the page. When the gel medium is dry I then paint the pages with gesso.
Now comes the fun part, I've used oil pastels and water soluble oil pastels. I add splotches of colour at random all over the pages. At this point lots of the gesso is showing through, I then rub the colours into the page to hide all the white, I let the colours merge to reveal new colours. The only draw back is if you do too many pages at once, you end up with blisters on the ends of your fingers, I speak from experience.
The next stage was interesting, I studied the page to see if it revealed anything to me it didn't to start with, but when I squinted through partially closed eyes I could just make out the dome shapes. That was enough for me, my favourite buildings. I outlined evrything in black, coloured in the domes and walls, then used a thin piece of metal to scrape back the outlines and highlights. I'll probably add other things later, but for now I'm waiting for it to 'speak to me' again.
This is the next page, I think I see a person on either page linked by a pink heart. Well it helps to have a good imagination.
