Moments

Sometimes, when the fancy takes me... A few days ago, someone said she'd like one of my albums. I just happened to be working on two other album covers at the time and had some extra cardboard cut to size, so I started work. It makes no difference really, whether I make two or three sets of covers at one time.

For the outside covers I laid down a layer of gesso and used a wooden skewer to scratch in a pattern of random lines. When it was dry, I gave the covers a wash of pink, making sure it got the colour down into all the gashes. Later I added a golden wash, which I worked into the lines over part of the cover and used to highlight the ridges on the other part. When that dried, I added tiny accents in orange, blue, and green.

The inside covers are brighter and slightly more colourful, I dry brushed on all the colours I'd used on the front covers, but I did so mainly in layers, so there is some mixing, but not a lot. The brushstrokes are visible, and that was my intention. I glued on (matte medium) scraps of patterned cellulose for variety and brushed over them lightly with the main color to blend them in.

The journaling pages are cut from 190g/m2 watercolour paper and edged with scraps of vintage book pages and ledger. I've also included scraps pf paper and transparencies between pages. That leaves the recipient scope to add journaling and to embellish further, according to her taste and materials available to her.

That done, I finished the book by gluing on scrabble tiles (matte medium) and some dyed buttons (Ranger inks), then cut and tied short lengths of yarn and ribbon to the spine.