Saturday, April 28, 2012

Altered Book Lesson 4, Glues and Gesso part 2

When I reviewed the glue sample pages after drying over night I found that they were all smoother but the gesso pages had the most bumps. The second part of this lesson was to create a double page spread using gesso on the background and as a glue to attach elements to the pages. On the left hand page I gave the page a light coat of gesso and pressed a sheet of Christmas music, a gold violin and leaves into it as a background. On top of that I used gesso to stick a magazine page of a wreath of Christmas greenery. For the righthand page I mixed gesso with green luminieres to colour it and coated the whole page. The page wrinkled a LOT but I emphasised the wrinkles with more lumiere paint in metallic green and gold. I heat embossed the tree shaped words of "Oh Christmas tree" in the center and surrounded it with enchanted gold embossed holly leaves and red berries coated with glossy accents. This wreath of leaves draws you into the center of the page. I tried the watercolour pencil and school glue stencil on the left hand page but the words did not come out clearly at all due to the coloured background. I did try four times to get a good impression. So instead I used hot glue to write free hand the word "foliage" which I stuck onto green tissue paper stuck onto the page with gesso. I coloured the letters with rub-ons in gold and sealed this with glossy accents. I used the same lumiere colours of gold and green to edge the left page and to tie it into the right hand page. This lesson was certainly an long exercise due to the drying times but it has reinforced in my mind the way glues behave and also taught me to used gesso as a glue, never done that before. On to the next lessons..............

3 comments:

SandeeNC said...

I know! Who would have thunk gesso as a glue? lol Not me anyway!! Your doing a great job, looking forward to tomorrow and learning something new!! waving hi from the hills of North Carolina :)

Bleubeard and Elizabeth said...

I'm very, very impressed with this spread. Gesso can be your friend. And I'm glad this course was worth learning about gesso being a glue.

Like you, I had trouble with the watercolor pencils not working properly. I gave up after the second time, but I see you stuck it out FOUR times. I would say that technique doesn't work like it should have.

That WAS a long lesson, with drying time and all. Can you see why I gave people 2 weeks? You are doing a super, incredible job of playing "catch up."

Sherry said...

Amazing pages Paula - that Lumiere paint looks amazing.

Thanks for your visit and lovely comments on my AB x