A Work in Progress

Inspired by a project in the latest issue of Bound and Lettered, I started work on a new journal cover yesterday afternoon.

Although the magazine contains very clear and precise instructions for making a clone of the featured project - you know me - I just couldn't resist the impulse to take the methods and techniques described and put my own creative spin on them. The Muse is having loads of fun.

The foundation for this book is an old Readers Digest Condensed, deconstructed leaving the soft spine intact. The instructions call for a hard spine. As I will later be piercing the spine to bind pages into it, we will see how well that works...fingers crossed. I can always go back and insert a hard spine if it doesn't. Crumpled tissue paper adhered with watered down gesso forms the first two layers of texture, followed by a layer of cheesecloth, also adhered with gesso.

I've never thought of using gesso as an adhesive before, and needless to say, it's a very wet process. As my next deviation from the instructions required slightly a dryer surface, I set the piece aside for a couple of hours before applying light molding paste (and then caulk when I exhausted my meager supply of molding paste...) through a stencil. The original instructions would have had me create an embossed area on the cover by adhering a Tim Holtz grungeboard cutout on top of the cheesecloth, and then proceed to immediately apply a final layer of crumpled tissue. The molding paste and caulk requiring time to set up, I set the cover aside overnight to dry, and will apply that final layer of texture later today. I can't wait to post photos of the finished piece.

I'm very pleased with the way it's turning out, and can almost see the finished book, graced with layers of purple, magenta, red and metallic gold. And although it's built upon the ideas and the inspiration of another artist (to a point), I still feel that I can proudly claim the piece as my own, as an original. As artists we all stand on the shoulders of our teachers, of the artists who came before us. If we didn't, everyone's art would look the same, and there would have been no evolution in the arts whatsoever. I love the inspiring words Michael DeMeng has to say on the subject.

I haven't forgotten about posting the rest of our excellent adventure in the Valley of the Sun, y'all; I just went on a little excursion with the Muse, and will post again in the next couple of days.

Thanks for visiting; come again soon.