Altered Book
Altered books are repurposed old books. They are books which are given new life when the artist changes them by cutting, pasting, painting, stamping, etc.
Before I started putting down ideas for my own altered book, I researched what other people were doing. The research task from the previous exercise also helped. Many people, like in the Victorian Novel project, prefer to paint over the pages to reveal words, thus forming new phrases and giving the book not only new purpose, but the text itself new meaning. Others choose to paint over the pages entirely and create beautiful images over the old text, sometimes leaving its texture to peek through the paint. A more radical way to alter a book is to cut into it and either create a three-dimensional work, like in Su Blackwell’s case, or to cut into it to create a tiered image hidden inside the book.
The most common way to alter a book that I have found is to use it as one would use an artistic journal by painting over the pages and decorating them with stamps, textures, random words, and occasionally original artwork. The book is not necessarily meant to be a work of art, its purpose stands mostly in being a fun and relaxing pastime.
As I was researching, I compiled a Pinterest board for easy and quick reference.
To start, I went shopping for a book. I looked for old book shops in my area and eventually found a couple hidden away. I mostly looked for a book which I would not mind ruining, because I also saw various very nice books which I would have been too afraid to paint on or cut into. The book that came home with me was indeed not very inherently valuable, it is an old manual called “Pedagogie pentru invatamantul superior technic”. It is a Romanian book about teaching, and it is very dull. Its design and typography are utilitarian, but the pages are thick enough that I could use them to create something new. Somehow when I bought it, I had not realized that it was perfect bound. The pages were still grouped in signatures and it threw me a little. When I went shopping for the book I had no other ideas for the project but the fact that I would have liked to take it apart and then re-bind it, this was not really possible with a perfect bound book.
I took it apart anyway and started to experiment with the pages. The first thing I did was to try painting over words in order to reveal others, but it soon became clear that I did not have the patience to look for relevant words that would make sense together in this particular book, I tried one experiment anyway just to see what it could look like. I thought the very utilitarian look of the book looked a little like some sort of report, so I started “redacting” lines, but circled a few words and connected them.
I also started playing around with some textures and with cutting out of the book. I bought gesso and used it to cover pages, then painted with gouache over. I chose gouache over other colored paints because the acrylics I have come out extremely shiny and rubbery, and when I have used them in sketchbooks before, they tend to make the pages stick together. I decided that using acrylics for an altered book would be a rather terrible idea. I also used India ink both with the brush and with a dip pen. I experimented with building up a little texture with the gesso and painting with gouache over and with using straight watercolor or gouache over the page.
I also wanted to play with the page turning aspect of the book, so I cut out geometric shapes from the pages and painted on the pages underneath to form an interesting play of colors and textures. Then I used the shapes I cut out and glued them to a different page to create a composition. I didn’t glue other things beyond paper on the pages of the book, because I wanted to alter the book in such a way that it could still be easily opened and closed, and adding too many things (or bulky objects) would make that difficult.
Out of all the experiments, the cutting out idea seemed to the most interesting. I liked the fact that I could see a small element of the second page through the holes in the first. So I separated a few pages from the book, folded them, and bound them to create a smaller booklet that I could experiment on without needing to cut out the entire book. First I sketched out a simple design on the pages starting with a very narrow new page and then widening the pages so that they can all be seen as one composition when the book is at its beginning. After sketching, I cut out the shapes with a very sharp cutter knife. It was a bit unwieldy, but the blade was sharp enough that it did its job without ripping the paper. Lastly, I painted the pages with a thin wash of watercolor. After it dried, I was happy with the way it looked when flipping the pages “front to back” but the book looked rather boring the other way around, and I liked the idea that it tells a story either way, so I drew out a design that would work from that direction, this time by using the space within the page instead of the margins of the page. Then I painted the opposite side of the pages.
It took a few hours, but I was happy with the end result, more so that all the other experiments. I resolved that the book would be created using some sort of cutting method. The part of the booklet I liked most was actually the side going “back to front” (although the book can technically be viewed from any side and can be held either in portrait or landscape) with the green and yellow leaf circle. I liked the fact that it was hidden within the book instead of creating the tiered look of the “front to back” design. To gain a better idea as to my options, I started looking for other artists who have done similar things with books. As an illustrator, I most loved the images which told stories, as opposed to the more abstract designs, the ones where the characters seem to invite the viewer to jump inside the book.
The shops called again, since the book I had used for experimentation was beyond rescue. This time I bought a nicer book than the first, “A Halhatatlan Iroasztal”, by Móra Ferenc.
I was attracted to its comfortable size, sowed binding, and gold lettering. Unfortunately it’s in Hungarian, so I am not entirely sure what it is about. As far as my mother could translate it is a book of short stories and the title means something along the lines of “The Timeless Writing Desk” or perhaps “The Immortal Writing Desk”. Interestingly, the book was not published in Hungary but in Bucharest, in the year 1962.
I was still tempted to see if I could take it apart and re-bind it. The idea persisted despite the fact that I have bound notebooks before and I know that a copious amount of glue is used besides the string. Meaning it could not be taken apart without ripping the pages. However, I only came to this realization after I dissected the book by cutting the cover off at the end pages and peeling off the headbands. Seeing the innards of the binding was very interesting. It was a little funny to see the cheap reused cardboard from some sort telephone…something they used for the spine of the book. And it was cool to see how the book itself was bound. The stitches that hold it together are not underneath the glue, but over it. The fact that the headbands were glued on instead of sown in was also a new realization. The only method I had seen for making headbands was by sowing them onto the book, but it makes sense that they would not do that when publishing en masse. These were sown onto bits of linen and then glued to the ends of the spine.
Another thing that had attracted me to this book was the texture of the pages. They are yellow with age but, they still retain a stiffness which means that they won’t flop when the images are cut into them. I also liked the way the letters were pressed into the paper instead of just being drawn on like the new printers do. One can faintly feel the texture of the letters when touching the pages.
Despite the fact that I would not be rebinding the book, I still took the fact that it was in pieces as an opportunity. The cover was in need of renewing, as it was so stained it was impossible to discern what the original color was. But the subtle golden embellishments were still intact, so instead of covering it up, I decided to repaint it. I used a layer of gesso in order to have a clean base for when I would paint in a color that would coordinate with the theme of the artwork.
Before I could start carving into the book, I needed a composition. I usually create compositions by first jotting down notes with various concepts and ideas. I knew I wanted the illustration to be fantastical and magical, as there is a magical element to a “living book”. I also needed to create something that would easily be carved into tiers, therefore the best sort of composition would be one with clear layers of foreground, midground and background. The best sort of composition that could fulfill this set of criteria was a landscape. I imagined that hills and clouds would lend themselves very well to the technique, so I started fleshing out some ideas with those. I ended up with an illustration of a fox looking up to a castle in the clouds. I had tried out several sorts of animals and people (I almost chose a horse and rider) but the fox stayed because I thought of how the fox is traditionally considered a sneaky sort of animal, one that is likely to play tricks on you. The idea fit with the concept of the book being a sort of trick, or at least a surprise.
Once I had my basic composition, I started marking exactly where the elements would be cut and where they would remain stuck to the rest of the page, or the frame. No element could really float on its own in the middle of the page (like a moon or a sun) because it would need to be attached to either the frame itself or another element attached to the frame.
I then sketched the illustration again on the book itself in order to have a basic idea of how it looked on the page. I used rulers for the “window” or “frame”, but kept everything else fairly simply, as it was only a guide. The actual elements was drawn separately on each page that they were cut out of. Instead of using a cutter knife, this time I had some proper small blades that proved much more maneuverable and a little sharper. They made my job quite a bit easier that the mock up had been in some ways. They allowed me to even cut through two or three pages at once, though I would still need to go to the third page to get some spots that the blade could not reach through the pages. Each element had to be cut multiple times from a few pages in order to gain depth and three-dimensionality to the illustration. The corners were the trickiest, as the sharp points are important for a clear silhouette and the elements were very small.
I only considered leaving the thing unpainted for a very short second before I decided it would be much better and easier to see with color. My decision was thoroughly cemented when I realized that the word at the very top and center of the illustration “Hajnal” means “Dawn”. The original illustration had planets and stars at the top right where the word “Hajnal” ended up, but now I obviously had to change it to a blue sky with a sun rising.
Experimentation with the color palette was necessary before I could start painting. Warm oranges would dominate as a light source, and greens would take over the foreground because of the hills and trees. The fox would be red. These things were a given, but I had to decide exactly what shades would best work together. I especially experimented with shades of red for the sky because I did not want to end up with a muddy, vaguely green shade of where pretty blues and oranges should be. I chose to use crimsons as opposed to vermilions, especially since I also wanted pinks in the clouds and because crimsons make better shades of purple, which I was set on using for the shadows because purple is complementary to orange.
Experimentation was also necessary because I am fairly new to gouache. I thought it would me marvelous to work with because I could layer colors without them becoming too heavy on the delicate paper, and it was. I can see why gouache is a favored illustrator’s tool. I painted all visible parts of the illustration, leaving only certain areas thinly glazed in order for the text to show through, such as behind the trees, in the details of the “window” and right at the top where “Hajnal” is written. I only expanded the paint a little where it could not be seen, though now that I think about it, it could have been interesting to create hidden illustrations within each layer. An idea for another time.
The guide drawing from the first page was still there, and I had originally thought I would paint the same drawing as the one carved into the book, but then I thought to add a bit of sequence, or story element to the book. So instead of drawing the same thing again, I drew the first idea with the nighttime scene. Of course I needed to choose a new color palette for this, this time with only cool colors. Instead of fresh, yellowish green I used a green with bluer tones and instead of orange light, I stuck with simple white. Though I had debated using some yellow in it at first. Instead of sitting upright, the fox is curled on the ground, asleep.
The interior all done, I started working on the cover of the book as well. I chose to cover the gesso applied at the beginning with ochres, yellows and oranges, to keep things in the same theme. Unfortunately I also had to do the meticulous job of painting around the golden letters on the spine, because their background no longer matched the one on the front cover very well, but it thankfully turned out all right.
For an extra detail, I purchased a fairly wide golden ribbon to attach to the book After measuring and cutting it to an appropriate size and pointed shape, I sealed the ends with nail polish in order to prevent fraying and glued it to the spine of the book after I reattached the headbands. For extra security, I also glued a strip of paper over the ribbon and onto the book.
As a final step, to attach the cover to the book, I needed new end pages, which I made out of a sturdy drawing paper, painted to look like the night sky with blues and purples to keep with the theme of day and night. Once the pages were painted and glued to the cover and book, I left the book to dry under some other heavy books overnight.
After everything was thoroughly dry and safe to open, I sprayed both the interior and exterior with a fixative. The book is not likely to survive at all if it encounters water, but hopefully the spray helps with preserving it anyway.
