Time is drawing nigh (boy, how often do you get to say "nigh"?!?) for me to put the Sketchbook 2012 project in the mail, in time for it to travel with all the other sketchbooks to various locales around the country. I thought it might be fun to share some of the layouts with you... I hope you like them. (Keep in mind I may end up adding to some of the pages, tweaking them just a bit.) It has been a departure from my traditional "signature" style of collage, and it's really been fun.
(BTW, clicking on the images will open them up in a larger window).
A lot of the cut out images came from paper samples from an xpedx paper show, and were very carefully cut out (note Rocky Racoon's whiskers above left).
Same with this page spread... the flowers on the left were cut out and applied over a very busy page that I made even busier by writing all over it, and on the page on the right. How cute are the little bumble bee men on the top of the right hand page?
This spread is a little goofy, but it's meant to be humorous... the bike and the wording "slow your roll" were recycled from a bicycle catalog. I prefer the spread on the right... I love the ampersand and the pink flower to the left of it.
In this spread I love the porcupine, and trust me, he took forever to cut out!!! Those quills are sharp! :D
I absolutely LOVE paper and the quality of the samples from companies like Finch, Appleton, French and Domtar are superb! Both the paper quality and the image quality are absolutely first rate in my opinion!
I love this spread... the face on the left is just so cool, with the colorful image of the world superimposed... The flower on the right side was another of those really labor intensive cutting jobs!
This is a bit of a silly layout... have you picked up on the repeating stripes that appear on a lot of the pages? The stripes came from a printed catalogue from UofM's School of Public Health that was really nicely done.
more images placed in no particular place... just for fun!
The cougar images that appear here and there are from Domtar's line of papers called, appropriately so, "Cougar". It is a gorgeous paper that takes ink just beautifully.
I really like the spread on the right page... the colors work really well together. The spread on the left made me think of the movie Babe, which is one of my all time favorites! Babe... "a little pig goes a long way".
This is one busy spread... the two little old ladies in the bottom left are my great-grandmother and her sister... they reportedly loved nature so I put them outside! :D
next to last pages...
The back cover is on the left and the front cover is on the right. I think the front cover in particular needs some love! Perhaps I'll have to make some sort of title for the book that mentions how much I love letters!
I hope if the traveling Sketchbook Project 2012 comes to a city near you that you'll take the time to go see the books!
wow, lots of very fussy fussy cuts! :) I LOVE that racoon, and the porcupine too. I don't think your book will be coming to London as it's European sketchbooks only for that leg of the tour :( otherwise I would have loved to see your sketchbook in person.
Posted by: Sarah | January 27, 2012 at 09:09 AM
great pages, and I can see how you were able to follow your instant inspiration when putting them together - it´s amazing what sometimes finds together this way ...
Posted by: Marion | January 27, 2012 at 10:17 AM
Oh wow.. the work you have put into this.. it is an Art piece... so much thought and detail.. exciting and beautiful.
Posted by: Gwen Buchanan | February 06, 2012 at 08:42 AM
Hi Kathy! Wow, what impressive work! I love the bold, graphic style of your collages. Thank you for visiting my blog the other day, and for leaving such nice comments. I am a great believer in following the muse wherever it takes you, whether it be collage, quilting, mixed media, photography.... it's all from the same source, isn't it!
Posted by: Kathleen | February 21, 2012 at 07:31 AM
Nice work! That's a real keeper.
Posted by: Mrs. Duffy | February 25, 2012 at 10:16 PM