Im running this as a group project on my Next Generations Group, everyone has got their hands on a children’s board book for this project and we are working on it collectively and sharing scans of the different stages.
I thought it would also be good to display the instructions for the Board Book Project on the aRtbUzz cHallenge so that anyone who is not a member of my group can participate.
Here goes…
Ok first thing I want you to do is get your hands on a childrens board book, do not buy a blank one for this.
Once you have your board book I want you to either sand the pages or apply a couple of layers of gesso to the pages to prime them ready.
Once youve prepped your pages your ready to start step one below:
Board Book Project Step 1:
If you have previoulsy sanded your pages and now want to add a layer of gesso before you begin these steps so your pages are smooth that is ok – go ahead!
First thing I want you to do to the first 2 inside pages of your book, paint them a lovely bright cobalt blue – i.e. a true blue – remember that blue you used to paint with when you was at school? A perfect bright colour blue – no shade of – just blue. Find some paint in your stash – do NOT go out and buy anything!!! That’s the rule – find some kind of paint medium – it could be acrylic or it could be watercolors or inks – anything at all so long as its come out of your stash.
1. Paint the first 2 board book pages with that blue (or nearest blue you can find)….
2. Open a glossy magazine – any magazine. And quickly flip through it, find the first page you come to which has a bright interesting bold pattern on it – can be a pattern on a dress, large bold text, or an advert or a background – anything bold which stands out, but it mustn’t have the colour blue in it!!
3. Rip a section of the magazine pattern from the page large enough to cover up approx 25% of either the left or the right hand book page.
4. Glue the patterned paper down into the book.
5. Take some gesso, and water it down slightly if it is thick stuff, if your gesso is thin then you don’t have to.
6. Lightly brush over the magazine paper pattern and also across the edges of the paper where it is glued onto the book page – in other words the gesso is overlapping both the patterned paper and the book itself. You don’t want a thick covering of gesso as you still want to be able to see the actual design in the pattern through the gesso. Let the gesso dry.
7. Take some black paint, or black gesso, and very sparingly use the edge of a credit card to ‘slice’ the paint onto the book – do not cover the patterned paper – just on the book pages. Less is more don’t go overboard. Criss cross and overlap your paint slices – in other words your making lines with the black paint across the blue background using the edge of a credit card. Let the paint dry.
8. Take some more thinned down gesso and apply it sparingly over some – not all of the lines you have drawn with the black paint and credit card in little cloud like blotches, you want to still be able to see the blue paint visible through the gesso – don’t white it out totally, let it dry.
9. Using the gesso again paint a very white prominent thin strip across one of the pages – either across the top or bottom or vertically on the left or right hand page – doesn’t matter where. Don’t paint it too thick. You can use masking tape to help you make a straight border if you want to. Let it dry.
10. Add white slices over the top using the credit card and white gesso.
When you’ve done that, give me a shout and we’ll start working on the next layer on the page.
Don’t worry about what it looks like at this point in time cos it isn’t finished!
Heres a scan of mine at this stage to give you an idea of what your aiming for (click to enlarge):
Ok so you’ve done the first stages of the board book project and now your all
ready to roll on the next stage 🙂
Here goes..
Board Book Project Step 2:
1. Remember that blue paint you used as your very first layer? I want you to get it out again 🙂 This time I want you to water it down – you can either water it down with plain old water (I did) or use a clear glaze medium if you prefer. You want it to be watered down to an ink like transparency, test it first on newspaper by sponging it onto the printed text. The glaze should be transparent enough to stain the newsprint blue and also allow you to read the text at the
same time.
2. Use a sponge and sponge the watered down blue glaze over the entire board book – yep over the patterned paper and also over the gesso lines and black paint. Let this dry. If you feel the paint layer is too heavy you can remove it with a baby wipe and start again.
3. With the remaining bits of blue glaze sponge the colour onto some sheets of paper torn out of a cheap paperback book – make a few sheets and set them aside to dry. You wont be using this on these 2 pages but you will be using them on another page spread further along in this board book project.
4. Get some light metallic green or blue acrylic paint, and use it to either stamp or stencil a large print design 3 times across both pages – you can make your own stencils or use foam to cut shapes if you don’t have anything suitable. I used a large fern foam stamp I had for this step. (see my scan for guidance)
Let dry.
5. Stamp or Stencil a large single letter in black paint on either the left hand or right hand side of your page – you are free to choose whichever letter you want for this step. I chose A. Let paint dry.
6. Lightly water down a tiny bit of black paint so it resembles ink, use a sponge to smear the black inky paint ALL OVER the book – yep over the entire page. Working quickly, take a DRY paper towel and rub it across the surface of the page – the paper towel will remove most of the paint but there will still be
some black paint left behind on the pages kinda like a stain – pay particular attention to torn paper scrap and the metallic prints you made as the black acts as a kind of resist.
7. Use a sponge to add a grungey sponged border around the entire edges of the board book pages. Let dry.
8. Tear a strip of paper from a cheap paperback book – uncoloured paper! And stick it on either the left or the right hand side of the page VERTICALLY.
9. Draw an outline around the edges of the black letter you stamped or stenciled – use a gel pen or something similar. Don’t worry if your outlining is wobbly – this is art not perfection.
You can see what it looks like now below (click to enlarge):
Step 3:
1. This will be trickier for some of you! I want you to go to a quotation or poetry website and find a verse within a poem or a quip or a proverb – anything short and not too long (2 lines maximum) BUT WAIT! The verse/proverb you select MUST begin with whatever letter you decided to stamp or stencil in black on your page – I want the first word in your quote/poem/proverb to begin with that letter! Example – I picked the letter A so I’ll be googling for Art quotes 😀
2. Once you’ve found your quote, copy and paste it into your word processor and change it into a font you like the look of, format it and print it out.
3. Cut out the quote by cutting out the actual lines of the sentence and then separate the words and glue them down on the same page side where the stamped/stenciled letter is – arrange them so that they aren’t too squashed together.
4. Pick out a main image to go on the book page with the white torn book paper border on it – you have free reign to pick out any picture or stamp any image for this, but try and pick an image which goes with the quote you picked.
5. Layer the image you picked onto a sheet of black card so that it is either square or rectangle in shape leaving a very small black border around your image.
6. Stick the image down on the page with the torn paper border on it.
7. Glue or attach 3 small silver embellishments in a row on the same page as the image – they can be anything at all so long as they are silver.
Once youve done that you are finitio and ready for page 2 of your board book!
tRish bEe's aRtbUzz 