Friday, 13 June 2014

Fabric and Flowers (posted by Judith)

Hi Folks, well it's my turn to post my little accordian style book, as suggested by Elaine, and inspired by Kate Crane.

I decided very early on that I wanted to use fabric as the basis for my book inspired by the work of Lin Brown whose work I admire so much. I was very lucky to attend one of her workshops recently covering this very subject, so it helped my project along enormously!

I started by cutting out some watercolour pages to 5" x 5", as this was the size that I wanted to work on. I covered all of the pages with fabric, using Bondaweb, and gave them a wash of colour using Paper Artsy paints. I added stencilling, stamping, and in some cases, some texture paste through stencils as well. I coloured some of the texture paste before I used it with paint for my front and back covers, saving time colouring the paste afterwards.

I stamped several images onto sparkly acetate, and also onto spare watercolour paper, which I painted with the paints to co-ordinate with my backgrounds. I then stuck the acetate to the painted images before I added them to the backgrounds.

I have used a couple of Lin Brown stencils on this page, which is the front cover of my book, and a Paper Artsy butterfly.



On these two pages, I have added some lace painted with paint to tie into my colour scheme, and some stamps by Jo Capper-Sandon join the Paper Artsy stamps.

I have watercoloured some stamped flowers directly onto the fabric on these pages, and added more stencilling. This time I have added script to the stencilling as well. The words are stamped onto painted fabric.



I have added a flower stamped onto black card to this page and another little Jo Capper-Sandon butterfly on sparkly acetate. The foliage was stamped in white, and given a colourwash of yellow and orange.


I have added fabric tags to these two pages, stapling the fibres to the tags instead of tying them in the traditional way.


Finally on my back cover, I have added scraps of tinted lace along with the Jo Capper-Sandon stamps. More textured stencilling completes the background.  I have dry brushed the edges of all of my pages with paint, using a variety of colours to tone in with each page. I also added some fabric tabs between the pages for interest.

My construction is not the same as Kate's, I have hidden the ends of my pages within the concertina folds, preferring an edge to edge look inside the book. I went for black card, like Elaine, as I felt that it complimented my bright colours and black stamping.

I have enjoyed the process of making my little book, and hope that you like the end result. Thanks for stopping by, Judith xx