OH WOW!

I’m soooo happy with what I made last week!!!

I saw this tutorial a couple of weeks ago, and I new right away that I wanted
to work on that! My “Leonard Cohen Art Journal” still had no cover.
Well, that’s not true ’cause it HAD a cover – I tore down an old book and I
worked on the old pages, but that old fabric cover was still laying around
waiting for me to do something with it.
And now it screamed at me to be altered the way as shown in the tutorial!

Everything fell in place when I saw the Lotus Paperie challenge for this week:
“scrap anything that isn’t for an album (decor, altered things)”


And so I took
the old cover
out of the closet
and decided
that this was
THE MOMENT
to go work
on my
Leonard Cohen
Art Journal
Cover…

Here’s how it
looked like
at first.

And this is what I made it look like….!!!!

I know, there’s a bit of glimmer on the picture.
That’s because of the heavy gel medium I used.

Here’s the back.

You wanna know
what I did
to make it
look like this?

Hang on,
I’ll tell you
in a minute.

Just enjoy the look
of this cover
for a while…

OK, OK… I’ll tell you how I did it. (Have some time?)

I started by brushing a light coat of gesso on the cover.
Because the book had a fabric cover, the gesso dried quickly and
gave it a nice base to work on! (Just like the tutorial said! Thanks, Gayle!)

Then I started spraying the “Leonard Cohen” title, using Tim Holtz
alphabet masks. At first, I sprayed with yellowish (“butterscotch”)
and brown (“espresso”) ink – but my cover looked like shit after that.
Literally!
I felt like crying at that point!

I went inside and smoked a cigarette.

Then I thought, what the heck! It is ruined anyway so let’s try and see
what happens if I wash the ink off again! So I went outside and put
the whole thing in a bucket filled with water! Hooray! It worked.
It brought me right back at the beginning: a gessoed cover.

At this point, I’d learned some things and had thought things over.

First – I wanted the cover to sparkle, but I knew already that if you spray ink
and put gel medium over it (for a glossy effect) the ink will mix and the effect
of the spraying will be gone.
Also, if I’ll mask the title with ink and put gel over it, the ink will run and
the title will become invisible again.

So this time, I started by painting the cover with acrylic paint.
Red.
(I didn’t use red/orange on my first attempt, ’cause Michelle used those
on her book cover… but after the brownish failure I just went along
with red and orange colours hoping that she don’t mind… Michelle?)

After that, I masked the title using stazon ink.

And – here comes the trick!
I painted the entire cover with gel medium, put some pieces of dictionary
paper in/on it and sprayed the ink while the gel was still wet –
“Butterscotch, Terra Cotta and Raisin”.
Aaaahhhh, now we’re talking!
Spraying on top of the wet gel gave the glossy look I was looking for
and I avoided smearing the ink around!

When the cover was all dry (I let it dry overnight) I used my stazon ink
to add some contrast. (Just “stamping” with the ink pad.)
I also used my favorite text stamp and alpha stamps for the under title.
(“Art Journal”)


Detail:
Dictionary words
(Dutch – English)
say “Kunst” (= Art)
on the front and
“Journaal”
on the back.

And here’s a picture of the inside cover.
It’s not completely finished ’cause I want to write the index on the right side.
I have to do that when all the pages are finished and I’ve decided on the order
(I make the pages apart from the book, bind it in later)


Detail:
I printed the lyrics
of Leonard Cohen
songs (all the
sentences one
after another)
and sprayed
and stamped
(same as on
the cover)

When I started this Journal, I planned on making pages for every song
Leonard sang in his “Live in London” concert…
When I told my friend I was planning to do that, she laughed.
“Oh, yes, and how many pages do you have made by now?
And how many more songs will you have to do still?
And you think that will fit in this cover?????”

I looked at her, and started to laugh too.
I counted the pages ’till now (9) and I counted the songs that are left (15)
Yeah, right.
That never fits!

I tried.
I have room for 4 more pages/songs, and that’s it.
I’ve already chosen those songs.

But there’s something strange, something weird,
something very scary to it…
’cause somehow I have the feeling that when I finish this journal,
Leonard will die.
I’m not superstitious, normally – but I can’t get rid of this idea.
And hey, the man is 76 already…

So maybe you will see some (3?) pages coming in the next few weeks.
But I will definitely have a problem with making the last one!

OK, I try not to think about it too much and will go on creating this weekend.
I’ll play with some BOM pages (have finished a few but will show you the next
time, this post is too long already.)

So let me all wish you a nice, sunny and creative weekend.
(No plans yet? Go play with this Lotus Paperie challenge!)

Je t’embrasse!

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10 Responses to “OH WOW!”

  • jessica Says:

    that came out amazing! i love it marit! i hope you have a wonderful weekend…you might want to email Leonard and see how he is feeling… ;-D

  • cindy Says:

    wow … that is truly amazing and awesome. I LOVE it. Your book is going to be a beautiful piece of art … 🙂
    Enjoy your weekend. 🙂 I have to work. 🙁 blah!

  • Jeanet Says:

    Oh wow..wow…wow…Super!!!Echt Super Mooi Marit!Wat een geweldige tecnieken!!Als Leonard dit ziet is hij vast zeer vereerd!Prachtige kleuren heb je gebruikt…je bent echt een super artist!!

  • Mieke Says:

    Super art! Well done

  • Cynthia Says:

    oh my that is too cool. I love all your unique approaches and isn’t it great when you make a mistake. You can just wash it away 🙂 loved how you told the story of making the art journal 🙂 can’t wait to see more 🙂

  • NancyB Says:

    Oh my gosh! This is incredible! I especially love the story of your friend on this! My answer…make it fit! You can always add pages!! hee hee…Please tell your son and BIG thank you on the cameras…I was kinda leaning on the Canon..Thank you both so much! What a lovely and smart guy he is! Lucky girl you are! xoxo

  • Lena Says:

    Hee meis, dit boek wordt zooo supermooi!! Ik heb het vorige week met eigen ogen gezien en dan is’t nog mooier dan op de foto.
    Geweldig leuk al die lovende reacties. En terecht hoor, ik vind dit echt het allermooiste wat je ooit gemaakt hebt!!

  • Vivian Says:

    GEWELDIG!!!!
    Dit is zo ontzettend mooi geworden, Marit!

    Voorlopig nog maar niet aan die laatste pagina beginnen, je weet het nooit 😉

    Fijn weekend, liefs Viv

  • Michelle Rydell Says:

    Oh Marit I LOVE your altered cover!!! WOWZA!!! It’s absolutely beautiful! I adore those masked title letters, and that photo is so dramatic against the red background – GORGEOUS!