I think your idea to do and altered book project in relation to How I Live Now is a great idea. I’ve included in this blog entry some videos and websites which will help you with the skills and techniques involved. It looks like a fun project for you because it combines your love of reading with your love of art; and what better book to inspire you than How I Live Now, one of your favourites.
The techniques for making altered books are many, and they range from simple to complex. It’s easy to get carried away. But as Cezanne says an artist must use his mind as well as his eye. So it’s not a matter of how many do da's and colors you use, but how well your project reflects the ideas and themes expressed in the Meg Rosoff’s novel. In other words the altered book(s) you make should bring you and your audience closer in spirit and understanding to the original How I live Now. At least that’s my opinion.
You'll need to find a book or books you want to alter. They probably should be hard back books because they are stronger and easier to work with. I think they also need to have some connection, at least loosely if not directly, to How I Live Now through related themes, symbols, titles, characters, art or photograhs, etc.
You'll need to find a book or books you want to alter. They probably should be hard back books because they are stronger and easier to work with. I think they also need to have some connection, at least loosely if not directly, to How I Live Now through related themes, symbols, titles, characters, art or photograhs, etc.
Another thing to consider is the scope of your project. How many books will you alter and how many themes, symbols, characters will you cover. Doing just one book can be a lot of work, and you need to decide how much you can do in advance and how much you can actually do in your allotted five hour time period. Maybe you can concentrate on one phase of the project and just outline any additional phases.
Here are some videos and websites I found which may be helpful. Remember that this is YOUR project and YOUR statement, so do it in YOUR way and take or leave any of these ideas as you see fit.
A nice book cover with helpful explanation notes:
Composing the art work for an inside page:
More on adding art to inside pages with notes:
Some great multimedia ideas. This woman is from England and her comments are easy to follow:
More how to's from the woman from England:
And the Creative Flight blog site at: http://www.creativeflight.blogspot.com/
I think this video has more ideas than you'll every need, but you may see an approach you want to try:
This link has FAQs about Altered Books:
http://www.altered-book.com/altered-books.html
A link to teaching How I live Now including sugested themes:
http://howilivenow.wetpaint.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment