{"id":4618,"date":"2009-08-28T13:08:51","date_gmt":"2009-08-28T11:08:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maritspaperworld.com\/old-blog\/?p=4618"},"modified":"2025-09-19T12:59:39","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T10:59:39","slug":"oh-wow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maritspaperworld.com\/old-blog\/oh-wow\/","title":{"rendered":"OH WOW!"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m soooo happy with what I made last week!!!<\/p>\n

I saw this tutorial<\/a> a couple of weeks ago, and I new right away that I wanted
\nto work on that! My “Leonard Cohen Art Journal” still had no cover.
\nWell, that’s not true ’cause it HAD a cover\u00a0– I tore down an old book\u00a0and I
\nworked on the old pages, but that old fabric cover was still\u00a0laying around
\nwaiting for me to do something with it.
\nAnd now it screamed at me to be altered the way as shown in the tutorial!<\/p>\n

Everything fell in place when I saw the Lotus Paperie<\/a> challenge\u00a0for this week:
\n“scrap anything that isn’t for an album (decor, altered things)”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nAnd so I took
\nthe old cover
\nout of\u00a0the closet
\nand decided
\nthat this was
\nTHE MOMENT
\nto go work
\non my
\nLeonard Cohen
\nArt Journal
\nCover…<\/p>\n

Here’s how it
\nlooked like
\nat first.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And this is what I made it look like….!!!!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I know, there’s a bit of glimmer on the picture.
\nThat’s because of the heavy gel medium I used.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s the back.<\/p>\n

You wanna know
\nwhat I did
\nto make it
\nlook like this?<\/p>\n

Hang on,
\nI’ll tell you
\nin a minute.<\/p>\n

Just enjoy the look
\nof this cover
\nfor a while…<\/p>\n

OK, OK… I’ll tell you how I did it. (Have some time?)<\/p>\n

I started by brushing a light coat of gesso on the cover.
\nBecause the book had a fabric cover, the gesso dried quickly and
\ngave it a nice base to work on! (Just like the tutorial said! Thanks, Gayle!)<\/p>\n

Then I started spraying the “Leonard Cohen” title, using Tim Holtz
\nalphabet masks. At first, I sprayed with yellowish (“butterscotch”)
\nand brown (“espresso”) ink – but my cover looked like shit after that.
\nLiterally!
\nI felt like crying at that point!<\/p>\n

I went inside and smoked a cigarette.<\/p>\n

Then I thought, what the heck! It is ruined anyway so let’s try and see
\nwhat happens if I wash the ink\u00a0off again! So I went outside and put
\nthe whole thing in a bucket filled with water! Hooray! It worked.
\nIt brought me right back at the beginning: a gessoed cover.<\/p>\n

At this point, I’d learned some things and\u00a0had thought\u00a0things over.<\/p>\n

First – I wanted the cover to\u00a0sparkle, but I knew already that if you spray ink
\nand put gel medium over it (for a glossy effect) the ink will mix and the effect
\nof the spraying will be gone.
\nAlso, if I’ll mask the title with ink and put gel over it, the ink will run and
\nthe title will become invisible again.<\/p>\n

So this\u00a0time, I started by painting the cover with acrylic paint.
\nRed.
\n(I didn’t use red\/orange on my first attempt, ’cause Michelle used those
\non her book cover… but after the brownish failure I just went along
\nwith\u00a0red and\u00a0orange\u00a0colours hoping that she don’t mind… Michelle?)<\/p>\n

After that, I masked the title using stazon ink.<\/p>\n

And – here comes\u00a0the trick!
\nI painted the entire cover with gel medium, put some pieces of dictionary
\npaper in\/on it and sprayed the ink\u00a0while\u00a0the gel was\u00a0still wet –
\n“Butterscotch, Terra Cotta and Raisin”.
\nAaaahhhh, now we’re talking!
\nSpraying on top of the wet gel\u00a0gave the\u00a0glossy look I was looking for
\nand I avoided\u00a0smearing the ink around!<\/p>\n

When the cover was all dry (I let it dry overnight) I used my stazon ink
\nto add some contrast. (Just “stamping” with the ink pad.)
\nI\u00a0also\u00a0used my favorite text stamp and\u00a0alpha stamps for the under title.
\n(“Art Journal”)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nDetail:<\/strong>
\nDictionary words
\n(Dutch – English)
\nsay “Kunst” (= Art)
\non the front and
\n“Journaal”
\non the back.<\/p>\n

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

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nDetail:<\/strong>
\nI\u00a0printed the lyrics
\nof Leonard Cohen
\nsongs (all the
\nsentences one
\nafter another)
\nand sprayed
\nand stamped
\n(same as on
\nthe cover)<\/p>\n

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

I looked at her, and started to laugh too.
\nI counted the pages ’till now (9) and I counted the songs that are left (15)
\nYeah, right.
\nThat never fits!<\/p>\n

I tried.
\nI have room for 4 more pages\/songs, and that’s it.
\nI’ve already chosen those songs.<\/p>\n

But there’s something strange, something weird,
\nsomething very scary to it…
\n’cause somehow I have the feeling that when I finish this journal,
\nLeonard will die.
\nI’m not superstitious, normally – but I can’t get rid of this idea.
\nAnd hey, the man is 76 already…<\/p>\n

So maybe you will see some (3?) pages coming in the next few weeks.
\nBut I will definitely have a problem with making the last one!<\/p>\n

OK, I try not to\u00a0think about it too much and will\u00a0go on creating this weekend.
\nI’ll play\u00a0with some BOM pages (have\u00a0finished a few\u00a0but will show you the next
\ntime, this post is too long already.)<\/p>\n

So let me all wish you a nice, sunny and\u00a0creative weekend.
\n(No plans yet?\u00a0Go\u00a0play\u00a0with this Lotus Paperie<\/a> challenge!)<\/p>\n

Je t’embrasse!<\/p>\n

back to homepage<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u00a0– I tore down an old book\u00a0and I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35,534,42,1],"tags":[348,349,351,38,350,734],"class_list":{"0":"post-4618","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-art-journal","7":"category-leonard-cohen-art-journal-art-journal","8":"category-lotus-paperie","9":"category-uncategorized","10":"tag-altered-object","11":"tag-book-cover","12":"tag-challenge-139","13":"tag-leonard-cohen","14":"tag-leonard-cohen-art-journal","15":"tag-lotus-paperie","16":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritspaperworld.com\/old-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritspaperworld.com\/old-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritspaperworld.com\/old-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritspaperworld.com\/old-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritspaperworld.com\/old-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritspaperworld.com\/old-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4618\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritspaperworld.com\/old-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritspaperworld.com\/old-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritspaperworld.com\/old-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}