Tuesday, April 28, 2015

It's About Time






I had the inspiration for Lorraine's "It's About Time" book long before I got the book in my hands.  Spencer Day sings this song (I think it's titled "Till You Come to Me") on his Vagabond CD.  There is a line that says" "and the clock says that I'm half past losing my mind."  I love this visual.

How perfect that I found an image of a person holding their head in their hands in frustration but the head is missing.  All you see are the hands cupped about where the head should be.  I then found a beautiful image of the insides of a Mont Blanc watch in a catalog.  I substituted this image for the person's head.

Now to add some drama to my spread, I created a pop-up.  This is a V-fold pop-up technique that I learned from my friend Pam in a workshop she did a few years back.  I like how this pop-up mechanism doesn't flap up and out when you open the book.  The movement of this pop-up is subtle and vertical.  It may be hard to see this in these pictures.

The other thing I like about this V-fold pop-up mechanism is that you can add a background to compliment the moving part.  In this case, I used an enlarged picture of a watch face (in keeping with Lorraine's theme).  I added more height by building up the back layer above the top border of the book.  And, since I still hate my handwriting, I used little self-adhesive letters to spell out the line from the song.  I think it turned out really cool!  

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Opiate for the Masses




I just LOVE the theme of Sophia's book:  "Opiate for the Masses."  So, call it inspired, but I've already finished my spread in her book!  I originally wanted to do a spread on Reality TV but Su beat me to it!  So my next idea was to pay tribute to those mind-numbing video games.  Seems everywhere I look, people are playing games on their phones.  Remember Angry Birds?  I have to admit, I am a fan of Candy Crush Saga (though I have been stuck on level 70 forEVER!)  According to my hairdresser, the latest craze is a game called Tsum Tsum.  But it was Bejeweled that first got me addicted to this past time and that is where the inspiration for my pages in Sophia's book came from!

I used highlighters to create the colorburst background.  I gathered up a handful of  acrylic "jewels" and started gluing them onto the page.  The title page is also "bejeweled" and further embellished with glitter glue.  Voila!  An homage to one of America's favorite past times, video games! 

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Artists' Quotes on Art



Colleen's book is all about artists' quotes about art.  Much of the artwork that preceded me were spreads done in the style of the artist whose quote was featured.  Although not a requirement, I found myself gravitating toward doing the same type of layout.  

Perhaps I was influenced by the Ai Weiwei spread that Colleen had done in her own book.  I was drawn to the urban, industrial vibe.  It immediately brought to mind the graffitt art of the elusive Banksy.  I searched his many quotes and found one that resonated with me:

"Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable."

I chose this silhouette of a boy (holding a bouquet of flowers) and girl (holding a baseball bat) and showcased them against an urban wall--much like Banksy's canvas.  (I even included a drain pipe as he sometimes does). I created this background using a pulled paper technique.   This techniques reminds me of brick or concrete walls where bills and posters are repeatedly posted and removed leaving paper remnants.  I then printed the quote onto acetate and cut out a window to display the words.

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

What's My Line?






For Amy's "What's My Line?" book this month, I thought I would give you a peek into the the dialogue that my husband and I often engage in.  I think this started shortly after we were married when he asked an uncle of mine what his secret to a successful marriage was.  My wise uncle told my husband, "Two words:  Yes, dear."

Over the years, my husband has developed his own responses to maintain harmony in our marriage.  The snippets I feature in this spread also include:

She:  "Do you want "A" or "B"?
He:  "Okay."

She:  "No. Not okay,"
He:  "Yes, dear."

She:  "You're crazy!"
He:  "Married you, didn't I?"

She: "Hurry up!  We're late!"
He:  "Just waiting on you!"

And finally (which I used for my sign-in),

She:  "I love you."
He:  "You better."

My original idea was to have a spinning wheel of quotes for each figure, but that proved to be too technically challenging.  I then decided to utilize magnets so the dialogue could be interchangeable.  I went with this comic book look when I found these two faces.  The look on her face is much like the frustration I feel when I am having these conversations with my husband, but the expression on the man's face is priceless!  It thoroughly captures the same feeling of delight my husband has when he delivers these lines!  Makes it really hard to get upset with him!

For the past 18 years, he has kept me laughing and that is (one of) the secrets of a successful marriage!  I think my uncle would approve!