I'm staring another art book, but this one is going to be a pretty small project. It's the one that lead to
this piece as I was planning it out. It will be another star book, all the black and white.
I wanted to do something on old book pages, and really like the
Roman alphabets with all the lines and circles around them showing to make the letters. However, I didn't want to just to an alphabet book. So I decided to but some quotes in with them. I was going to just do random quotes about words and writing, kind of like an old sketch I did way way back. I can't it, but here's an abstract (ish) painting based on it, which might give you the idea:
This time around I wanted the quotes to have a bit more coherence. So I tookt he quote I liked most, "Words, words, words" from Hamlet and expanded it to include a few of the lines around it as well.
Close-up of the pages. There is one letter and one quote per layout. This is the back layer, and the others will be cut-out so you can see into this one. It's based on a square, because the letters are. The quote is smooshed into the same shaped. I didn't really use calligraphy for the quote, what I did was trace the outline of the letters and scribble inside to (mostly) fill them in. I love it with a little 'sketch'-like quality to it, rather than a more polished finished product.
When the separate pages where done I threw them all on the floor and decided on the order they would go in (see the top photo). The quotes and alphabet to go in order, but I didn't want them to simply alternate (letter on the left, quote on the right) so I played with it a bit until I was happy.
Then they all got cut out and glued to nice stiff paper to finish it off. I ripped the 'H' when I was putting it on, but that turned out to be a good thing because it was a boring letter and I replaced it with a more intricate 'K' instead.
Sometimes things turn out even better than you had hoped. And this one is awesome! I'm really pleased to have something work out so well after the last book was nothing but an exercise in frustration.
The cover. It made some antiqued paper using mostly ink and only a little coffee, so that it matched the old book and black paper.
Here is the second layer of the book. Over the letters I cut out just the capitals (not the lines and patterns), and to frame the words I did a few of the circles and lines, but very simplified and only around the outside.
The second half of the book. I like the 'Q' because of the positive/negative thing going on with the stem. I did the same thing with a few of the circles, or wherever the letters go outside the square.
Like in this close-up!
I'm staring another art book, but this one is going to be a pretty small project. It's the one that lead to this piece as I was planning it out. It will be another star book, all the black and white.
This time around I wanted the quotes to have a bit more coherence. So I tookt he quote I liked most, "Words, words, words" from Hamlet and expanded it to include a few of the lines around it as well.
Close-up of the pages. There is one letter and one quote per layout. This is the back layer, and the others will be cut-out so you can see into this one. It's based on a square, because the letters are. The quote is smooshed into the same shaped. I didn't really use calligraphy for the quote, what I did was trace the outline of the letters and scribble inside to (mostly) fill them in. I love it with a little 'sketch'-like quality to it, rather than a more polished finished product.
Then they all got cut out and glued to nice stiff paper to finish it off. I ripped the 'H' when I was putting it on, but that turned out to be a good thing because it was a boring letter and I replaced it with a more intricate 'K' instead.
