Secrets...

I am really enjoying being a part of this "Dark Side" altered book round robin.  Our dark hostess, Amy, ROCKS!  We have two rounds going simultaneously, but the round will end soon as we only have 5 players in each group!

This month, I had Kelly's book.  Her theme was "Dark Art."  I usually prefer to have a more specific theme to work off of, but when I thought about dark art, I started to think about secrets, and the rest of the spread came to me pretty quickly.

I was drawn to this picture of a woman's face.  The pain and sorrow in her eyes are almost palpable.  I wondered, what she was thinking?  What had she been through?  And what was she hiding?  She seemed trapped in her life, wanting but unable to escape.

I created a background using crackle medium to make it look like she was behind a wall.  (It's hard to see the real color of the wall in the top three photos, so I took a fourth picture, which is a close-up using a flash). Some of her face is obscured, but we can see part of her face through an opening in the wall.  This quote from "Clockwork Prince" by Cassandra Clare was fitting:  "Lies and secrets...are like a cancer in the soul.  They eat away what is good and leave only destruction behind."

Having A Great Time...With Pink Martini!

Darrell's book, "Having A Great Time, Wish You Were Here!" invites us to re-live a memorable time.  Since Darrell is a big music lover, I wanted to include music in my spread.  Last February, a group of friends got together and went to see "Pink Martini" in concert.  They are a 12 piece orchestra that plays original music with a distinctive "retro" feel.  They have an amazing lead female vocalist who sings in no less than seven different languages!  The bandleader describes their music best when he says "our repertoire is wildly diverse.  At one moment, you feel like you’re in the middle of a samba parade in Rio de Janeiro, and in the next moment, you’re in a French music hall of the 1930s or a palazzo in Napoli. It’s a bit like an urban musical travelogue...In that sense we’re a bit like musical archeologists, digging through recordings and scores of years past and rediscovering beautiful songs.”  Read more about the band at www.pinkmartini.com

The concert was an absolute blast!  When we weren't up on our feet dancing, there was a lot of hand-clapping and toe-tapping going on.  How can audience not have a good time in the presence of their music?   Have a listen for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gz-1SuanhY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71xgX2BB2BY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfo_7LIN6ek

For my spread, I selected a page with a picture of an old 45 rpm vinyl record on it.  I burned two Pink Martini CDs for Darrell, created jackets for them and positioned them onto the left side of the page.  The right side of the spread has a pink martini image and a blurb about the band on two separate transparencies.  I struggled with the layout of this page for the longest time.  I wanted to include the image of the "retro" couple but wasn't sure where to place them.  Eventually, I slipped the cut-out behind the two transparencies and that seemed to work!

 

Black & White Chunky Pages

Inspiration came easy for this month's chunky page swap!  I had wanted to try the bargello technique (a quilting technique).  Our "Black & White" theme gave me the perfect opportunity to try it out.

I have the most beautiful collection of black and metallic art papers.  I selected an array of these papers and began cutting them into thin strips.  I then glued the strips (one of each design) onto black cardstock.

After I finished covering the black cardstock with the different patterned strips, I then cut the cardstock crosswise.  This way you get a cross-section of all the pretty papers in each strip!

Next, I glued down the cross-section strips onto 4 x 4" squares of black cardstock (the size of my chunky pages), carefully staggering them to create this stair-like effect.  You can play with the layout to create the effect you want.  I trimmed the edges to fit the 4 x 4" pages and glued two pages together back-to-back so that the bargello design is visible on both sides of the page.  Gives my pages a nice weight too!

My bargello pages turned out beautifully, but there was still something missing...I decided to tie a silver ribbon around each page like you would wrap a gift.  Now they were just perfect!

Fear of Temptation

In my Dark Side AB RR, I got to explore the topic of "fears."  As I glanced through the pages of Sue's book to get some ideas, I came across a section on the Ten Commandments.  The Sixth Commandment reads "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery" which made me think of the Fear of Temptation...

When I found the image I wanted to work with, I added elements, color, texture and embellishments.  Best of all, I was able to incorporate the text from Sue's book right into my spread!  The spacing was a little tricky, but with some adjustment, I was able to make it work with my composition.

Under The Influence Of A Full Moon

Our Hawaii Altered Book round robin will be winding down in a few short months.  The theme for the book I had for this round is "Moonscapes."  For my spread, I made a big full moon by painting a tyvek envelope with black acrylic and then heating it with a heat gun until it began to shrink up.  The resulting texture looked like the surface of the moon.  When the tyvek cooled, I painted over the black surface with a silver colored Lumiere paint.  When I was happy with the color, I cut the tyvek into a large circle to make my full moon.

For the background, I didn't want to go with the obvious black universe because there would not be enough contrast with my tyvek moon.  I chose to use a watered down turquoise Lumiere paint.  I mounted the tyvek moon onto the background with mini brads.

I wrote up my technique on a small card which I tucked into a vellum pocket secured to the underside of the moon.  "The Full Moon Made Me Do It" caption is printed onto a sheet of vellum cut into a circle and glued to the right side of the page. 

The Human Cannonball

Ooh this month's chunky theme was tough!  The theme was "circus" and I think just about everyone struggled to find inspiration for their pages.  After abandoning my original idea, a lightbulb went off in my head.  One of the players in our chunky page swap had an unfortunate incident involving a few great bottles of wine and a triple trip in the bathroom.  According to Monica, she felt as if she had been "fired from a cannon and landed on her nose."

We all got a chuckle out of Monica's story (at her expense), but it also inspired the idea for my chunky pages:  The Human Cannonball!  I started with an image of a person being shot out of a cannon and combined it with a picture of Monica--straight off of her blog.  The position of her hands and the expression on her face made her the perfect Human Cannonball!  This one's for you, Monica!

Pele: Hawaiian Goddess of Fire

For the Dark Side AB Round Robin that I am participating in, I chose to do a spread about Pele, the Hawaiian Goddess of Fire.  Chris' book is all about "Spirits" and of all the Hawaiian spirits, Pele is my favorite.  I just love the colors of fire--red, yellow, gold, copper, orange, rust, etc.

To create my fire background, I took a manila folder and crumpled it.  I pulled out all of my "fire-colored" ink pads.  Starting with the lightest color (peach), I stamped all over the crumpled folder.  With the next slightly deeper color (yellow), I stamped only about 3/4 of the way up leaving only the lightest peach color at top 1/4 of the folder.  As I continued stamping with progressive darker colors, I only stamped 1/2 way up and then only the bottom 1/4 of the folder.  The result is a graduated, ombre effect--the darkest colors at the bottom and the colors gradually lightening up as you move to the top of the folder.  When I was happy with the colors of my background, I sprayed a copper shimmer mist on top which added a touch of brimstone to the flames.

I created a pop- up for Pele's face.  Her hair is colored with Inka Gold "Copper" from Artistcellar (Hi Lisa!)  I love the rich color and metallic finish for her fiery red mane.