My January ARC review

Darcy's ARC, or Artful Readers Club, starts tomorrow with a book, a book review, and an art object made to go with this book.  I realize I'm a few hours early, since Darcy lives in Great Britain, but for those of you who follow or are a frequent reader of my blog, you know I can't access my blog from my computer.  Those of you who are first time visitors, I apologize because of this snafu, I hope to correct soon, after I speak to the people at Blogger.  I want to thank Darcy, because, as soon as this post goes live, I'm going to send the link to Darcy in hopes she will add the link at the appropriate time to the linky list. 

Before we begin the review, I wanted to add the final book to my list.

I will review this book in either February or March.  I'm not familiar with the Regan Reilly Series, so this should be a good introduction, and a great diversion from my mostly art related books.
 

Now let's look at the book I'll be reviewing for January's ARC. This is an old, old book, loaned to me by a neighbor whose daughter is a Stampin Up demonstrator.  While perusing her bookcase, most of what I saw were Stampin Up catalogs, so this book was the most promising candidate.

If you found this book on Amazon, it would look like this.

Here are the specifics of the book:

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Watson-Guptill (May 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 082300791X
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7.7 x 0.5 inches 

This is what the book looks like on my worktable.  Didn't I mention this book was OLD?  Consequently, stamping has evolved quite a bit over the last 14 years since this book was written.  I had seen Grace Taormina on The Carol Duvall Show several years ago, and she always was stamping something or other.  I doubt anyone, especially any of my British friends would even know who she is.  It seems her days of being a queen of stamping have come to their conclusion, to be replaced by hip, chic, stamping artists like Tim Holtz and others.

There was an extensive Table of Contents.  In fact, this book surprised me.  When I first opened it, I thought there would be a lot more photos than there were.  Instead, as I first glanced through the book, I saw a lot of words.  Many, many words, and not a lot of pictures.

Taormina spends a lot of time introducing us to stamping tools, including making our own stamps.  I confess I've made potato stamps before, then graduated to pink erasers.  Now that I know what to look for, I may graduate to better erasers.
 

She showed us how to use found objects and how to make our own stamps using such items as rope and beans glued to wooden blocks.  I'm sure many stampers have done that, but I had never seen beans on a wooden block before.  Of course, that WAS the 90s (grin).

More tools, such as ink pads were then displayed.
 

I was especially interested when Taormina started talking about stamping on fabric.  For that, I got very excited, but it was nothing I hadn't already seen.  Just different stamps.

One of the things I get upset about (and have noted in other book reviews) is the fact that some artists choose to lump a bunch of disparate items together and discuss them without bothering to label them.  And the identification on the left of the photo didn't even show the various tools in order, so if I hadn't known what most everything was, I would have been lost.

The inks, pencils, and pens were even worse.  I had no idea what some of the pieces were, even after I read a description or reason why they were needed or used.  Most were things I'd never seen.  Well, I've seen and own a brayer, and own a couple of sea sponges, but that's really mostly the extent of my working knowledge of the items shown on this page.  I was embarrassed to admit, I truly needed a chart of some kind to tell what was what.

The blurb to the left of the photo read:

An assortment of tools and supplies for adding color and texture to surfaces and for applying and manipulating inks and paints (page 28).

For being such a wordy book, the examples left a lot to be desired.
 

In the Introduction, Taormina wrote:

"Color and Design" take the mystery out of two inherently intimidating subjects, giving readers the tools they need to make informed and thoughtful decisions while still allowing them to acknowledge their own instincts and preferences (page 9).

When I got to the chapter on color, I eagerly read it.  Unfortunately, it didn't add anything I didn't already know.  Although I confess that color is the one thing I feel most comfortable about in any part of a design project, I was hoping for a bit of insight I didn't already have.  Sadly it was a rehash of what I taught in my altered book class (see my right sidebar for the lessons).

The author went into a lot of detail on masking, but only showed one example.  She also spent time explaining in detail the difference between repeated and linear designs.  She even showed diagrams of grids, blocks, bricks, and scallops, but never showed or even suggested how to accomplish this feat.  In that respect, I was highly disappointed.

Although Taormina discussed stamping surfaces such as metal, wood, leather, pottery, glass,and polymer clay, she offered few, if any, examples.  On the other hand, she spent time showing two projects she designed. 

These were well documented and showed what you needed to know to complete her project.  Of course, when I saw this frame mat, I knew I had just seen my inspiration piece!!

I began by making a total of 24 sewn front and back scrappy journal pages made of paper products, and divided between two signatures, which, when folded, turned into 96 pages.  When those were finished, I began with a piece of my oatmeal hand dyed fabric (see these posts here, here, and here for how I dyed the fabric) and used a foam stamp to add the large Fleur de lis and a punch turned mask for the small ones.

I used a makeup sponge to apply paint to both the stamp and over the mask.  The large circles which were originally destined for the trash surrounded the central images.  I used a broken plastic dish to lay out my three paints.

I then outlined the middle of the book using copper thread.

After printing the words using my computer, I then took everything to my basement studio where

I turned the paper over and colored the words using Crayola Fabric Crayons.   Since the words were so dark on the paper, I didn't need a light box, which I don't own.  If you use this product, found at Michael's in the US, and want to make words, you must reverse the letters in order for the words to show properly on the page.  Unfortunately, I am not sure this product was even available when Taormina wrote her book!!

I first positioned the words over the area I had sectioned off for the spine, then to make sure the printer ink didn't "bleed" onto my iron, I covered the page by folding the paper over the written words.  Remember, the crayon words are against the front (or right side) of the fabric.

It was at that time I chose to read the instructions found on the back of the crayon box for ironing the crayon onto the fabric.  After I had read the instructions, I saw I was supposed to use polyester fabric with this project.  I don't wear polyester, and I don't use it in my art projects, so I was afraid this project was doomed.

Not the best image transfer, but surprisingly readable, considering this was 100% cotton.  I also had a lot of crayon color left on the transfer,

and I have never been one to waste anything!!  So I cut some upholstery fabric that was a bit stretchy (and might have contained polyester), and used it to make the inside cover stand out a bit.  The iron is on the right and cast the shadow you see on the piece.

I then got bold and colored directly onto the fabric using my Fleur de lis mask.

Since I still had a bit of color left on my crayon transfer, I used it once again to add the words on the second pocket.

Back upstairs, I sewed the pockets to the inside cover, then sandwiched heavy pellon in between the front and inside covers.

Here is the finished piece with the signatures sewn into the scrappy journal.

I am very proud of this project, even though I didn't learn a lot from Taormina's book.

You can see the pages I used to make this scrappy journal, and 

the outside when it was finished.  This took nearly two weeks to finish, but I'm quite pleased that I used my Fleur de lis stamp, used my punch as a mask, used my fabric crayons for the first time, and sewed this book together.

Thanks for stopping to see my January ARC review and art project.  I can't really recommend Taormina's book, because it is definitely dated.  I suspect if you have never stamped anything in your life, and want to update your home decor, it might (emphasis on might) be useful.  But I believe there are far better books out there that are more recent and geared more to mixed media art similar to what I make. 

Thanks again go to Darcy, because if she hadn't gotten me off my behind, I never would have even considered making this scrappy journal, or read this book!  Also thanks go to Darcy for hopefully taking time to add my review to this month's linky list.  Now lets see what other ARC members have read and created.