Try It Out Thursday : Mixed Media

We tend to think of spunbonded fabrics in terms of textile art, but of course they have much wider art applications than that.  It has become increasingly popular for textiles to move across into mixed media, blurring the boundaries between the two.  I've been working in mixed media for many years now, and use spunbonded fabrics in a variety of ways to get some very interesting results.

I'm particularly interested in altered books...no, don't shudder!  There is of course an argument that books are sacrosanct, and should never be harmed in any way...but nonetheless, books are pulped or otherwise destroyed every day (apparently you can have too much of a good thing).  The books I alter are books that are being sold off for next to nothing, books that are old, or falling apart or for some reason unwanted and unloved by anyone.  They make a wonderful three dimensional 'canvas' for art works.  I thought we'd have a look at using Lutradur 30 in an altered book.

There is lots of information on the web about how to alter a book;  if you have never tried this branch of art before, you might find this link helpful.  Or just Google 'how to make an altered book' to get lots of instruction!  You join me here part way through altering this book.  I have done most of the preparation, and now I'm making art in the pages.  This page here has been painted with acrylic paint; I want to add a leaf to it (no pun intended..).  So, I begin by spreading mod podge over the painted page.  I'm using Mod Podge here because it was the first glue that came to hand;  PVA is fine, acrylic mediums, book paste is all fine. Don't get hung up about adhesives...if you're stuck, fusible would do just as well.  We don't associate ironing with books, but there's a first time for everything!

After spreading the adhesive evenly across the page, I added a large, brown skeleton leaf.

I then added more adhesive to cover the leaf.  Make sure there is an even covering; this will both give some added protection to the leaf and hold the lutradur in place.

Finally, I cut a piece of Lutradur 30 to the size of the page, and stuck it down.  So far so good. 

I now want to think about colouring the lutradur...but we'll talk about that on Tuesday.  Of course, the techniques I'm using here could be applied to either good quality paper (watercolour paper is ideal) or to board, as well as to books.