Generating Ideas You will need to center your altered book around a theme or tell a story. Begin by brainstorming ideas for that theme. Choose something that you are passionate about, like your favorite football team, fashion, friends, hunting, etc. A list of ideas was included in the introductory PDF. List several ideas. Once you choose your idea, list 6 to 10 subcategories or ideas for individual pages. For example, if you are using your favorite football team as a theme, categories could include the history of the team, top players, statistics, colors and logos, and interesting facts. You may also choose to do a sculpture or pop-up book. This will be one main piece that incorporates all of your ideas together
Research There is an endless amount of book ideas and techniques available online. Some books are carved up, while others are collaged. Take time to look at your options. There are also thousand of ways to transform your books. Watch videos and look at websites. If you find something you want to use, bookmark the site.
Visual Development Begin by planning your pages. There is an example of a planning sheet on the Altered Book PDF you are required to watch. Since we are no longer printing worksheets for class, use this as a guide for planning your pages on practice paper. Complete a minimum of 6 pages or 3 spreads (2 pages across from each other). Incorporate "your" hand into the first page design to represent your signature on your book. All of the spreads and the cover must represent your theme. You may also choose to do a sculpture or pop-up book. If so, you won't have multiple pages or use your hand signature. You will need lots of parts to tell your story or theme and sketches to show how the final product will look.
Once you have planned your theme and pages, choose a book. You will need to consider size when choosing the book. If you are doing 6 or 8 pages, choose a thin book keeping in mind that up to half of the pages will be removed and the rest will be glued together. If you plan to add more to the book for yourself after it has been graded, you may choose a book that is a little larger. You may also want a larger book if you plan to cut a large niche (window) to place small objects inside or add drawers. Sculpture or pop-up books may also be larger.
Next, begin to remove pages. You will remove up to half of the pages. This is done by laying a ruler near the sown gutter and gently tearing out the page. Don't tear it out of the gutter as this will loosen the other pages and your book will fall apart. The small edges that remain can be glued between pages, used as part of the page, or used to add a tip-in (An added piece of paper that is the same height and double the width of the page. It is glued to the remaining tab and folded in half to fit inside the book. It will be completely covered with design to be opened by the viewer. This is seen in magazines where the viewer opens a folded page to see a full version of the add, like a car).
Pages will now be glued together. Group 2 or 3 pages together. Using Elmer's Glue, lay a thin layer of glue down and spread out with a scrap piece of cardboard to remove extra glue. This helps prevent the pages from becoming too wrinkled. Work with the book back flat on the table but the cover opened but raised in the air. If you lay the book totally open so that the front and back cover are both laying on the table, the pages lay at an angle. When they dry, your book will not shut. You may wish to put wax paper between pages so that they don''t stick together as they dry.
After the glued pages are dry, add your designs. You may paint, collage, cut, glue,etc. See examples of the many ways to show your theme.
The last part of your project is to complete the cover. This isn't done first since you will doing lots of messy techniques inside. You can cover the book with fabric, paint it, cut out a window, etc. Covering the book with fabric requires a piece of fabric that is at least 1/2" bigger than the book all around the edges. Place the closed book on the fabric and lay it across the top of the book. If you measure and glue the fabric on an opened book, The fabric will tighten when the book is closed and it will pop the book open not allowing it to shut. Leaving the book closed, lift up all but the back cover slightly. Drop glue on the top corner and fold the tip of the fabric corner into the glue. Repeat on the bottom. Run glue down the edge of the book between the two corners and lay the edge of the fabric into the glue. Close the book and lay the fabric across the top. Using scissors, cut a slit from the top edge of the fabric to the edge of the binding (the thin back edge that covers where the pages are attached). Repeat this on all of the binding edges. This will leave a flap of fabric the width of the fabric. Open the book to create a gap between sown pages and binding. Push fabric flap into the gap to cover the edge of the binding. Close the book and flip it so that the unglued fabric and front cover are laying face down on the table. Repeat the steps used to glue the back cover starting with gluing down the fabric tips to the corners of the book.
Final Design Refinement Clean up any messy gluing or painting. Trim messy edges,etc. Ask someone who doesn't sit near you to flip through your book and guess what your theme is. If they can't figure it out, you need to add things to make it more clear.