Altered Book swap #9

Greetings Everyone,

Last wednesday my Altered book group had our 9th swap.  This time I had Anne's book which was called "Road trip".  I  had a difficult time with this one since I'm not exactly a world traveller.  I'm more of an armchair traveler.  So that's was my take on the subject of Roadtrip. When I finally settled on this idea the wheels in my brain started to turn and all of a sudden a little story wrote its self.  The result was of course another way over-the-top presentation.  I'm sure that everyone is rolling their eyes but I couldn't help it.  The story just took over.  I had to tell it.  I just couldn't keep it in. To contain my story I decided to make a little book inside Anne's altered book.  To hold it I made a pocket in the book.  You can see it above. The pocket is laced together in such a way for the book to slip into easily. Here's my explanation page text above:

Ok I'll admit it.  I'm an armchair traveler.  So I guess you're wondering what that is?

An armchair traveler is someone that rarely physically travels for one reason or another.  But we do travel. And I mean big time.  I have to confess that I am one of the best. I travel all the time.  Yeah-I know what you're thinking. So you read a book, fall asleep and have a dream.  Big whip.

But I'm here to tell you-my dreams are spectacular! Stupendous!.  I am a professional armchair traveler. If there was an armchair Olympics -I'd be a gold medalist. I'd be a contender! And I'm here to prove it to you.

For your edification and enjoyment I have recounted just one of my incredible adventures. In fact by my count it's adventure # 3,954.

So here goes. Enjoy.

My Title Page

So it all happened one dark and stormy night.  Cliche I know.  But it really was dark and stormy. Anyway I was reading my latest scif/fantsy novel firmly ensconced in my comfy armchair and somehow despite the rain and extreme winds pelting the house-I fell asleep

I awoke in the midst of a swirling tornado!  Debris from the surrounding houses was swirling around and around and I was right smack in the middle of it all.  It was kind of a rush.  It wa like riding Space Mountain at Disneyland!

I did feel bad about the neighbor's cows though.

Well I finally landed somewhere over the rainbow with frizzy hair and no comb.  I was totally disorientated.

Next thing I knew I was surrounded by a bunch of little dudes all  talking to me at once.  Through all the noise I heard something about a dead witch, her sister finding out and that I should really leave now.  I thought: what's the big deal? It's not like I dropped a house on her or anything.  But they were all very insistant.  Yes even Toto too!  So not wanting to wear out my short welcome I decided to leave. 

They pointed me to the Yellow brick road as the way out of town and I started off.  You can see my start in a way cool time lapse sequence on the opposite page.(above)

I continued to follow that silly road until I came to green hillsides and lush meadows.  It was beautiful here but weird.  I mean the houses had round doors!  Those doors must have been really expensive to replace.  It isn't like you could just hop over to Home Depot and find a new one.

Anyway-I'd  have stayed longer but some short dude with pointy ears was standing by the side of the road trying to sell a gold ring.  He must have lost his job-poor guy.  I felt bad for him and bought the ring for $50.00.  I put it on so that I didn't lose it during my travels.

I stopped just long enough to ask a nice old man in a pointy hat the directions to the next town.  I don't think he was all there because he told me to go fast and not look at the eye.

Ok.

Whatever.

The befuddled old gentleman had directed me to a large B & B on a hill.  He said to ask for his buddy Dumbledore and I'd be well treated.

I  was finally within flying distance to the Inn when I inadvertantly ended up in the middle of some kind of sporting match.  Yikes!

I think the players were trying to catch some sort of bird or was it a key with wings?  Anyway I really got in trouble when the darned thing moved into my flight path.  I swear that what happened next wasn't my  fault.  I was trying to shoo it out of my path but I caught it instead!

Man that kid was so angry!  And everyone was yelling and swearing at me.  So I got out of there fast and didn't look back.

I flew so high and fast that I actually reached space!

Ok so about now you're wondering how I could breathe in the vacuum of space right?

I could breathe because this was my dream.  So butt out!

I had now traveled quite a distance.  I was parched .  I went from galaxy to galaxy looking for a place to relax, have and drink and put my feet up for awhile.

I finally found a great Cantina in Mos Eisley.  It was one of those little holes in the wall with real ambiance.  I sidled up to the bar to order a drink but was told that this establishment didn't serve my kind here.  Huh? I was going to argue this point but the bartender looked a little aggro.  So I just flew to a corner and pouted awhile.  I have to say that the place had a great band and that helped to chill me out a bit.

However as the night wore on things started to get a little rough.  Multiple fights broke out resulting in an actual death or two.  But it was after some old guy with a light saber cut off another guy's arm that I had had it. Not even the force could keep me there after that .

I blasted out of Mos Eisley as fast as I could go!

I felt better after I had put some distance between me and Mos Eisley.   As I dropped out of light speed I decided to cruise along on impluse power for awhile.

So there I was cruising along, singing a song and minding my own business when all forward momentum halted.

I was caught in a tractor beam!

I was pulled aboard a large vessel.  Some crazy Scotsman brought me to the captain.  He was kind of cute in a 60's sort of way.  I didn't think he was human at first but I realized that he was standing up to his waist in Tribbles!  He was irate and told me to get off of his ship.  I pointed out that my being on his ship was his own darn fault and that I would gladly leave.

 But before I left I gave him the phone number for a good spay and neuter clinic.  Man that ship was infested!

I was then taken to the transporter room.  Cool!  I had never been beamed before.

Just before the transfer the first officer walked in.  He looked familiar so I asked him if he was related to a little guy with a ring?   He showed no emotion just gave me a little hand signal as said:

Yes you guessed it:

Live long and Prosper.

My only response was : Meh-whatever.      The End

Well I suppose that if you didn't think I was crazy before you do now right?  meh-whatever.

Connie over and out!

My Classes for the remainder of April

Greetings Everyone, Sorry I haven't blogged for awhile but I have been very busy with a brand new assemblage class that I will debut next month. Stay tuned for information about this new class. In the meantime I wanted to remind you about my classes for the reminder of April. Here are the details:

Saturday April 16th

Location: Art Max in Seaside

Class: Altered Cabinet cards
Description: Don’t you love all those old cabinet card photos? Using Collage, Rubberstamping, acrylic paints and various embellishments we will give discarded photos from 1800’s and 1900’s a second chance to be loved.
Items to bring: Paintbrushes and scissors. Feel free to also bring any special charms or decorative rubber stamps and dye inks that you might be dying to use.
Time: 11:00 to 3:30 Lunch break at 1:00
Fee: $45.00
To sign up for this class please email Connie at connie@isbjorn.com
Class limit: 8

Sunday April 17th

Location: Palace Arts in Capitola
Class: Texture for Collage Artists
Instructor: Connie Andrews
Class Description: In this techniques driven class we will explore ways to add texture to your art work using paint, Gesso, Gel Medium and special texture mediums. Each student will walk out with a tag book of Texture samples to use for future reference.
Items to bring: We will be splattering paint so please bring paint brushes and an apron or smock to cover your clothes with and paintbrushes. All other materials will be supplied.
Time: 11:00 to 4:00pm Lunch break at 1:00
Fee: $50.00
Class size limit: 8
To sign up for this class please call Palace Arts at 831 464-2700

Saturday April 30th
Location:C. Andrews Studios
Instructor: Connie Andrews
Class: Altered Book of Drawers
Description: In this class we will be creating a simple but elegant altered book of drawers. Our altered books will become a special place that holds our secrets, found objects or treasured memories.
Items to bring: Please bring your altered book kit that contains: xacto knife, cutting mat, scissors, paintbrushes, matte gel medium and gesso. You can bring any personal collage images or items small enough to fit in a matchbox that I might not have. Otherwise I will have plenty of images and found objects as usual. I will also have books with me for you to choose from.
Time: 10:00 to 4:00 Lunch break at 12:30
Fee: $55.00
Class Limit: 6
To sign up for this class please email Connie at connie@isbjorn.com

Beginning collage class at Palace Arts in Capitola

Greetings everyone, I taught a two classes this weekend in which the students produced some incredible art. I would like to share with you some of the art from Sunday's beginning collage class at Palace Arts in Capitola. These pieces are simply amazing. Its difficult to believe these are all beginning collage artists. I find these pieces inspiring and hope you do too. Also keep watching my blog as I hope to have some of the samples from both book of drawers classes soon.

New Book of Drawers!

Greetings! I wanted to share my new Book of Drawers. This is another sample for the class that I will be teaching this weekend. Yes that's a fly in the bottom right hand corner. Many people ask me where I get my ideas. Often this question is difficult to answer. Many of my ideas seem to be bits and parts of different things. However with this book I can tell you that the idea came directly from the title of the book. This by the way is an excellant way to start an altered book if you have no ideas for a theme in mind. The name of this book was Fly on the Wall. Just imagine what a fly on the wall hears and sees! I used a picture that I liked on the front of the book and made the cover look like peeling wall paper. To do this I used corrugated and real embossed wall paper. The ruined wall/peeling wallpaper look completely covers the book from front to back cover.

Above you can see the book with the Drawers open.

Here is a closeup of the drawers. The peeling wall paper is continued inside the drawers as well. "Fly on the wall. Hears all our secrets and sees all."

Huummm something to think about the next time you see a fly on the wall isn't it?

Altered Book Club Swap #8

Greetings everyone! Its's past time for this post. I seem to be running behind time on everything these days. Anyway, the Altered Book Club met last week with our 8th swap offerings. This time I had Cindy's Book of Secrets. The Book of Secrets was a difficult subject for me because I just don't have many secrets. I figure what you see is what you get. If I do have secrets then they belong to someone else and I don't have permission to spill those. I really don't like holding things like secrets, grudges or anger. They just get you into trouble. So needless to say after three and a half weeks of trying to find a subject it came to me that I do have one secret. This secret was not easy to present or easy to speak about. My secret is that I have a secret world. My secret world goes with me everywhere because it's in my head. My world is populated with people and creatures out of books, poetry,movies or total fabrications from my own brain. In my secret world I am beautiful, special, have magic powers and many adventures. As you might have guessed I spend alot of time in my secret world. I am happy there. Because of my secret world I can think up Fairy Detection Kits and wild art projects. But also because I spend so much time in my secret world often I feel just slightly out of step with the "real" world. "The doors of my mind open to a secret world rarely seen" In the photo above, the two strong doors represent the doors of my mind. If you open the doors you can see my world below.

To create my world I decided to present it as a fold out in Cindy's book.

Here is a closer view of the left hand panel. In the front is the fae maid beguiling and sucking the life from her unsuspecting knight. If you look closely you will find another fairy in attendance. At the top of the page is a tribute to the dragon riders of Pern and the white ship bearing Frodo away to the west.

In this panel the central figure represents me (I always have long beautiful hair and wear Medieval clothing) I am surveying my world which includes a mermaid, Pegasus and enchanted castle. On the very right of the panel is the flying Ford Anglia from Harry Potter (Those boys are goint to be in so much trouble!)

In the right hand panel is my handsome warrior. I won't even go into the comments made about his rather large sword! Above him is Gandalf the Grey. And above everyone's favorite wizard is my beautiful fairy in her enchanted garden.

I think that this has been one of the most difficult collages that I've done. For the first time I actually had to construct a world in which I could fit in all of my favorite elements and still have them make sense. By "construct" I mean paint. Some of the world was painted before the collage elements were added and some of it was painted after the addition of the collage elements.

I have to say that I was gratified when most people thought that my world was a place that they would want to visit. I suspect that many creative people have secret worlds. How about you?

New Class: Altered Book of Drawers

Greetings Everyone! Yes it's time for a new class. For the next two weekends I will be teaching you how to make an Altered Book of Drawers. This is a fun and surprisingly easy type of altered book to create. You can add pages to the front of the book for extra content or just use the entire book as a cabinet of treasures as I did in the book above. The original title of this book was Deadly bugs and Killer insects so I thought it was a perfect book for my Secret Life of Bees theme.

Here is the book with the drawers open.

A close up of the Gods hands holding my giant bee. Who doesn't love a giant bee?

I will be teaching this class in two locations this month. Here are the details:

Saturday March 19th Location: Art Max in Seaside Class: Altered Book of Drawers Description: In this class we will be creating a simple but elegant altered book of drawers. Our altered books will become a special place that holds our secrets, found objects or treasured memories. Items to bring: Please bring your altered book kit that contains: xacto knife, cutting mat, scissors, paintbrushes, matte gel medium and gesso. You can bring any personal collage images or items small enough to fit in a matchbox that I might not have. Otherwise I will have plenty of images and found objects as usual. I will also have books with me for you to choose from. Time: 11:00 to 4:00 Fee: $55.00 To sign up for this class please email Connie at connie@isbjorn.com Class limit: 6 Saturday March 26th Instructor: Connie Andrews

Where: C Andrews Studio Class: Altered Book of Drawers Description: In this class we will be creating a simple but elegant altered book of drawers. Our altered books will become a special place that holds our secrets, found objects or treasured memories. Items to bring: Please bring your altered book kit that contains: xacto knife, cutting mat, scissors, paintbrushes, matte gel medium and gesso. You can bring any personal collage images or items small enough to fit in a matchbox that I might not have. Otherwise I will have plenty of images and found objects as usual. I will also have books with me for you to choose from. Time: 10:00 to 3:30 Fee: $55.00 Class limit: 6

To sign up for this class please email me at connie@isbjorn.com I hope some of you will join me in creating your very own Altered Book of Drawers

Bunny Boy, Cabbage baby and Bird boy oh my!

Greetings Everyone, I had a small but wonderful class at Scrap-It in Santa Cruz yesterday. I just had to show you some of the cards that my students made. Above you can see the Bird Boy. This card was really fun because the wings, crow and cat were all 3-D items. I particulary loved the cat with the bird in its mouth just watching that crow. Yum!

Look at this lovely cabbage baby. I guess they do come from cabbage patches.

And you've got to love bunny boy and his stuck up queenly sister. I'd laugh at her too!

These last two are my latest installments. Up top is Emily Squash. She is her parent's " little Pumpkin". And of course Aunt Emily and her lovely new Easter bonnet. And to my fellow artist Cindy McCool-Hey Look! Its a chicken.

And that's all folks!