Gel medium, Altered books and Glass Bead Gel

Greetings everyone! Saturdays class was a blast. It was small but mighty. Here is an exquisite student piece.

And this student thinks of herself as a mere beginner. I beg to differ! I want to thank Monica Martinek and her staff for allowing me once again to invade her shop Scrapbook U with my tons of stuff! Monica has some great new items in the shop that my hands were positively itching to buy.

I wanted also to remind everyone about my new Altered Books classes this year. Thanks to one of my brilliant students I have finally come up with a teaching structure for these classes that I believe will work. Here are a couple of scans from some of my altered books.

Here are all the particulars of the class!:

Saturday January 23rd Where: ArtMax in Seaside Class: Altered Books #1-How to begin. Description: Have you ever heard the quotation “so many books so little time”? It’s never more true than when talking about altered books! So what is an altered book? An altered book is creative reuse at its best. Think of all those unwanted books ready to be thrown away. Why waste them when you can turn them into works of art! In this first class in the altered book series we will focus on what book to choose and where to find it, content, how to prepare and strengthen pages, what materials can be used and finally a full collage spread. In this series of classes students will gradually build up an altered books “kit” of favorite supplies that will be handy for use at any time. This “kit” should be brought to every class. First kit items to bring: Paint brushes, scissors, and gel medium. If you have a book and images that you’d like to use bring them. I also will have a box of books available to look through and images as well. Time: 11:00am to 2:30 pm Fee: $35.00 If you wish to sign up for this class or have any questions please email me at connie@isbjorn.com.

I have also been experimenting with Glass Bead Gel. This is a very beautiful medium but I'm finding it quite a difficult one. I've not quite been sure what to do with it. But I wanted to post a couple of samples. Did you know that its probably the best transfer medium around? It makes incredible transfer images that look like frosted glass. Here is a sample :

Beautiful and simple isn't it? Well that's just a few of the things that I've been up to lately. I hope to see you in class soon!