Hands (2002, 2009)
Posted in Altered Books on December 12th, 2009 |
I think just about everyone has done one of these little hand-shaped books. In 2002, I had fun experimenting in mine, and keeping a book to myself for a change rather than sending it out in a round robin.
After many years, I found another stash of hand-shaped board books in 2009, and altered a second one.
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- The cover of Hands, the book I started in 2003. A scan of my hand layered over some handpainted tissue. Yes, that's a three-dimensional eyeball in the center of the hand, from a collection of old doll eyes that Nina brought to the office. The title is printed with a laser printer on acetate, and the floating eyes are stamped on acetate. The whole cover is painted down with matte medium to take the shine off the acetate elements.
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- The hands in this layout are a little hard to find, since I layered so many things over them. This started out to be a happy image of a flower on a tray with some music spiralling out of it, but somewhere along the way, I took a turn down a darker street. I bought a party assortment of little plastic snakes recently, and I never thought I'd see the day when a plastic snake was the perfect thing to fill a space, but here it is.
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- I've been working a great deal with black and white images lately, especially now that I've got a laser printer at home. The image on the right is my own hand, scanned and grayscaled. Layers of sponged acrylic paint and spattered pearlescents are the only color used.
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- How could I do a book on hands without including the most famous hands of all? I did a similar layout in one of the books in the Dark & Strange RR, and I liked it so much I did another version of it for myself. This is one of those that just doesn't scan as well as it should: three layers of glitter glue create a universe that sparkles and shines in many colors.
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- I'm not a big fan of frou-frou girlie Victorian stuff, but I do have a collection of vintage photos and a bag full of Victorian scrap, so every once in a while, one of these layouts escapes.
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- My second hand book had a similar cover as the one I created previously. What can I say---I love doing the dimensional eyeball thing.
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- Each layout in this book has a quotation about hands tucked into it. This one is about holding a book in your hands, and conveniently, each of the three 17th century ladies was painted with books.
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- I love doing Asian themed artwork, and this one is ornamented with quite a few punched pink flowers with red glittered centers.
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- Another theme I love, complete with a quotation from Leonardo da Vinci about hands and art.
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- A slightly risque quote from Mae West is tucked into this vaudeville themed layout.
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- Since these little hand shaped books started life as prayer books for kids, it's fitting that the last layout in this book is a spiritual one.
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- This book doesn't close flat any longer---but it looks pretty sweet standing up.
