Last month I took an altered book class on Creativebug, and I swear it somehow altered my life! (See what I did there? 🤣) So today I’m going to share this Altered Book flip through, as well as share some of my experiences in the class!
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I made a video of my altered book flip through, which you can watch at the bottom of this page. But first I want to share more about the class, and give you a closer look at some of the pages I made!
First of all, the teachers for this class, Faith and Courtney are so much fun! They made me look forward to every single day, just so I could watch the lesson and follow along. It’s because of this class, I think I might actually be an altered book artist! Don’t get me wrong, I’ll forever be a creative explorer… But I think that’s why I love altered book arts (and art journaling!): you can do pretty much whatever you want to do!
Early on in the Altered Book class I took on Creativebug we made these blackout poems, and I ended up doing three throughout my book (at the chapter beginnings). They’re definitely a fun and easy way to get started in your altered book journey, especially if you’ve never made one before. Here are the actual poems:
No Two Alike
Everything under the sun, no two exactly alike.
Its own kind differs, an individual twist.
When an artist wishes, slight divergence always occurs.
Be endlessly fascinating.
Create something beautiful.
Express. Imagine. Evolve.
Spontaneous little scribbles,
On a clean piece of paper,
Boldly outlined.
Wasn’t that fun!? Here’s another…
Pen, Pencil, and Chalk
A drawing means,
– the many kinds of them –
employing all the hues of the rainbow,
enhance the quality of play.
Perhaps best defined
with a furry animal.
Possibly.
How delicately she handled this most familiar.
Okay, I admit that one was a little weird… but still fun! (And if you watched the video below you already know my silly sense of humor! 🤗)
And finally…
The Universal Language
read a story,
visualize characters,
images likely
pictures we have seen
in a distant century.
on the opposite page
language speaks.
create beautiful things,
and feel at home with them.
whatever the artist intended to convey.
imagine.
certainly.
As a person who wrote a lot of bad poetry in high school, I actually really like these! 😊
Some of my other favorites include this 2 page spread with collage:
The image on the left side (above) is a collage of a painting over an illustration that was already in the book. Needless to say, they all look pretty concerned, if not horrified. 😬 😂
The woman in the original illustration had to cover her eyes! And why not, I mean, this little girl is pouring out eyeballs, after all:
Even the flying monster (by Dore, from The Divine Comedy) is like, what in the hell?!
I should mention that the book I chose to use was a discarded library book called “Drawings to Live With” (from 1966.) Many of the pages were torn or soiled, so I didn’t feel bad about cutting it up and making it into a new piece of art.
In fact, “Drawings to Live With” kind of became the theme of my book, as I used a lot of my old art in there. Prints that I had tucked away, and even some originals are now stored in there. I wasn’t doing anything with them anyway. So why not give them a fun “home” to live in!?
This was probably my favorite spread:
The idea kind of just came to me when I looked at these pages. But there is a similar prompt in the Altered Book class where you just work with what is on the page. I imagine that would be a bit harder to do if there was only text, but the class gives you some cool ideas!
In fact, something to note is that I didn’t even do all of the prompts from the class, and even some that I did do, and share with you here, are my own take on that day’s lesson. So needless to say, if you end up taking the class on Creativebug, you’ll still be surprised (and delighted!) with each day’s lesson.
Like when I made the “rainbow arc” (one of Faith’s lessons) I used vintage book pages. So it wasn’t very colorful (it wasn’t colorful at all, in fact!) and it turned out a little bit wonky, but I love it nonetheless:
Here’s the title page that I collaged (I especially love the little reverse-cutout on the left page — subtle but fun!):
And one more spread, just for the fun of it….
And finally, here is my altered book flip through video so you can see all the pages inside (as well as get a glimpse of my weird and nerdy sense of humor! haha!):
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Thanks my creative friend!