Friday, May 11, 2012

Inspiration Avenue: Hands

This week Shel and her mother Loretta chose the weekly Inspiration Avenue challenge, which lasts until noon on Mother's Day. I had not planned to enter this week, because I honestly don't have time to prepare anything. But with the challenge being HANDS, how could I not dig up a few of my Hands AB pages to show everyone.


These could be a mother's hand holding all these concepts.


Of course, a mother might teach her children to achieve their vision. But words of encouragement aren't the only things found in this altered book.


There are whimsical pages,


holiday pages,


and pages using vintage images and matching tissue.



Hands from other cultures can be showcased, especially if they are made from polymer clay.


I'm sure most people would be aware of X-rayed hands. The "real" X-rays are covering the book pages and also act as embellishments in the corners, while magazine images become the important focal elements on these two pages.


I have been reading that Inspiration Avenue participants are part of a postcard swap. Mail from other countries, all "hand stamped," is always welcome.


Sometimes we wear our hearts on our sleeves, and other times they become electric hand held (or sewn) hearts.


Those who are following along in my AB class know I use gesso as a covering for AB pages as well as a glue. Here I did both! I was very lucky to find the right magazine image for the spread.


For this two page spread, I began with some silk fabric I dyed. Next, I stamped several images, then layered hand dyed cheesecloth and hand dyed silk over the background fabric and sewed them together. After ironing the assembly into my AB, I added two tape transfers I made from magazine images. To get a better idea of the texture, I hope you will be able to enlarge this spread.


This is a zipper spread in my Hands AB. I had never put a zipper in a book before, so this was a real challenge. Closed, the page is made up of magazine images and various scrapbook papers.


Open, the zipper reveals a hidden page. I used my handmade paper and wallpaper to hide the zipper elements and to fill in around the inside image.


After I had been making this AB for awhile, I discovered sewing on paper. Both the front (or at least I'm calling this the front)


and the back show how I incorporated the sewing, even though I don't have a machine that has feed dogs.


I made the background for these two pages at the same time I started my Hands AB. It was when I removed excess pages from my soon-to-be AB. I cut two "hand" stamps from potatoes and colored the pages using lime green ink. I had SO many extra little images that made no sense or were not cohesive that I had to figure a way to incorporate them. I have several pages like the ones above.

These are not necessarily my favorite Hands AB pages, but they were the first ones I ran across. And since my time was limited this week, it was easy to search for AB pages and copy them onto this post.

Thanks again to Loretta and Shel for this week's challenge. Had it been ANYTHING other than Hands, I would not have played (or rather had time to play). Now I must remember to link to Inspiration Avenue on Friday (the day I post my IA challenges) because this is definitely a scheduled post I finished Monday night.

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24 thoughtful remarks:

...the yorkshire fox... said...

...what a super posting, so much thought and effort with a loVely message behind it all...Mel :)

Halle said...

I love this AB! The first page is my absolute favorite but there are so many more wonderful ones as well.

Monica said...

Love your various interpretations.

Dawn said...

What amazing pages Elizabeth. Very clever and thoughtful as well as incredibly inspiring. Thank-you so much for sharing them my lovely.
Hugs, Dawn x

Kim Collister Studio said...

When my heart stops thumping, I might be able to find something to say besides WOW! Awesome Inspiration here..Love Love Love it all.
I am going to have to come back and look at each one and take in every detail. All amazing and everything I love about your work!

Thanks for sharing your "hands" in this week's challenge!!

XO
Kim

Kim Collister Studio said...

P.S. Send me your address:
You have some Mail !
XO
Kim
shopImgirl@gmail.com

Unknown said...

I LOVE this, especially the mother spread. "Achieve your vision" indeed- LOVE it!
Hugs,
Stephanie

Healing Woman said...

I love the 'zippered page,' the 'electric hand' and also the 'achieve your vision.' All in all, your hand made hand book is amazing.

Terrie said...

Wow - those are some very cool page - that zippered page is extraordinary! I'll have to remember that to try in my AB - oh yeah, I really MUST get back to that soon! I see it sitting on my desk daily and haven't worked in it for a couple weeks. sigh. I'm thinking my next AB might incorporate hands - just love all the possibilities there....hmmmm

Craftymoose Crafts said...

Thanks for showing this amazing set of hand pages! The zipper page has me searching my old sewing supplies for other types of closures that might work. Your work is beautiful, and I am so happy I can upon your blog and joined your class.

Jo Murray said...

I just LOVE all these clever collages. Glad you had the opportunity to post them.

Liverpool Lou (Anne) said...

Hi Elizabeth, fantastic pages :-) I particularly love the first one, the 'sewn/electric' one with pink background, the gesso one and love the colour scheme of the yellow background/purple hand/calendar page one.
Loved seeing all the pics of Bleubeard, I'm a cat person myself though I don't have any presently. My last cat was a small tabby who lived to the ripe old age of 22!
Anne xx

Priti Lisa said...

This is incredible Elizabeth!
I am so happy you posted all of the pages...
so much inspiration!
And the Bleubeard post...he is just so darn cute.
I love how patient he was watching you work.
♥♥♥

Unknown said...

You really love Hands hun and this is a joyous book full of them and what they can do for all of us love it ;0) Dxx

Dianne said...

Amazing how many phrases (and images)in our culture utilize hands...so glad you posted these. It is good to see how our work progresses too, as you decided some of your earlier pages weren't cohesive. I think they are terrific! this altered book is a genuine work of art..."hands down!"

Shelinwa said...

OH THESE ARE W O N D E R F U L !!!
OH you have made this hard to pic which to post on the blog OMGoodness.

Lynn Cohen said...

The hands have it. Love all the art and that you used your no dogs sewing machine! ;-))

gma said...

GROOVY! Love all aspects of this post as always very cool...woot

Unknown said...

Wow - you have created some amazing pages. I loved the first image and it's message. Great post as always x

Kim Collister Studio said...

Oops, I don't know what happened to what I was writing..
Oh well, I was thinking if you want to leave me your address as a comment on the hands post on my site, I will get it and write it down and then delete it. Just a thought!
Otherwise I will keep it for you until you can send me your address!! :)
No problem!!

Kim

VonnyK said...

Wow, this is fantastic concept. Loved every single page but those x rays are so cool. Very clever indeed.
Von

Michele Bergh said...

I love all these images! My favorite is the cut out of a hand where the guys face is showing through it. Very clever.

Yvonne said...

Fabulous assortment of hands, Elizabeth!

Julia Dunnit said...

I'm at a bit of a loss for words, E...this is the FABULOUSIST post of a series of fabulous lessons .

I hope, despite all the work, that you've enjoyed your week offline. Loved your big box post, couldn't comment at the time....Target ( tarjayyyyas they say in CA) must be one of my faves, it's fascinating!