Books

I was in the middle of fiddling with my altered book when the phone rang announcing that the book I requested was in at the library. I read about it on a writing blog I follow. While the glue was drying I sped off to town. And while the glue was drying I began to turn that  library book's pages.  I pretty much turned dry pages yesterday. ;^)

Spreading gesso with a card is way too messy for me. I'll be back to using a brush.

The idea of using ordinary white glue for a raised effect is good but things kinda got out of hand as they spread and sloped and ...

Then there was the problem of just hitting the top of the glue with the paint brush.  ???

It wasn't too hard to ignore the altered book as I was not thrilled and I doubt that this is my style.  I feel I have too many different images and the little duckies on a ribbon were a waste. I need to think things through better.

I've had to quit singing in the rain because the white stuff is sifting down in very large flakes.  I hope some better ideas sift down as well!  But then the next book in the series may be calling my name and I can stick to dry pages. I wonder if the phone will ring again today? 

Which glue?

The Altered Book 101 is slowly coming together as I experiment with various methods for gluing pages together. This strengthens them for the various applications of colour and embellishing.

First option is a glue stick. It has the advantage of being relatively tidy. The pages dry flat.

Another cheap school product is white glue. This is messier and doesn't dry as flat. I used my finger to spread it and then the Kleenex stuck to my finger! lol


Gel medium is the one I've been using and I now realize I can spread it much thinner if I use an old credit card. It also dries flat and can be used as an adhesive and a clear finish. This is not as cost effective as the first options but I do find it kinda multi purpose.

Gesso is a substance that can be used as a glue as well as a substrate that is much like a primer. It dried fairly flat.

I used it to prime a page and glue down another paper. It worked fine but...

The pages curled quite a lot.

The cure for that is to apply more gesso to the back of the curled page.

It certainly solved the problem but I'm wondering if I would have had to do this extra step had I done this with the gel medium. Something more to try. I should also think about the amount of drying time but it is a good idea to do a lot of pages at one time for when those those creative times strike. Glue needs to be spread evenly, giving special attention to the spine as well as the edges.

EDITED: I did do a second trial with the gel medium as a glue. The pages did not curl even though I used the same paper colour wheel as with the gesso. I suppose there are different ways to do various things. The trick is knowing when to use which one!