Playing with Mixed Media in an Altered Book “Myths and Legends”

In May, I signed up for an online art journal class called “21 Secrets, The Best of 2014 & 2015.” Inspired by Catherine Anderson’s class Media Remix I decided to alter a hardback book for my experiments.

Using craft acrylics, I laid a background base. Then added magazine images, sometimes just the silhouette, and worked the pages with Caran d’Ache Neocolor II water soluble crayons as well as using Sakura Gellyroll Moonlight markers. On some spreads, I also added highly textured objects (my handmade stamp or my hair band clip) and did some rubbings with the crayons; that worked terrifically.

I really like using these different media on the page spreads. In the past, when trying to use a hardback book and artist grade heavy bodied acrylics, I would get frustrated because the paper just couldn’t stand up to that kind of paint. But craft acrylics is perfect since there isn’t a lot of thickness to it and not much pigment. The kind I used--DecoArt Americana--looks very matte on the page when scraped thinly with a plastic card or palette knife. And with the addition of the crayons, there was no chance the pages would stick together.

The original title of the book is “Myths and Legends of Ireland” so I’ve called this art journal “Myths and Legends.” Because I’ve started it with this distinctive style, I’m inclined to continue doing page spreads with these same ideas. Do you ever do that? Does it make it harder to change it up? Why do I feel every spread has to echo the previous ones? If an art journal a place of experimentation why keep everything the same? It does add to continuity to keeping a theme. Another altered book I did—and finished!—used only collage images; my tools were a sharp scissors and a glue stick. Tell me what your art journals are like.