Altered Book - Mermaids

Me oh my how lax I have been!! Is it September already? August zipped by pretty quick...

Anyways, here's my next 'offering' ...

This was my first attempt at using paints and not just papers and fabrics. For the cover, I used Lumiere's Metallic Acrylic Pearl Turquoise and on the inside I used Ultramarine mixed with white. I cut the artwork (Waterhouse's 'A Mermaid') out of the cover and attached it to the inside front page. My little craft knife was not up to the job as the cover is fairly thick cardboard-like material, so got myself a much larger, sturdier knife that did the job. I then attached aqua gauzy material over the hole to give the impression of spying the mermaid through a misty haze. I used shells and a glass piece to decorate the cover and on the inside, glued seed pearls to her shell bowl and wrapped aqua fibres around the picture as a border.

I covered the text with Anna Griffin paper, poked a couple of holes around the prow of the boat, threaded through the white/gold fibres and tied it around the mermaid's hand. With the other mermaid, perhaps playing an enticing tune on her shell, I was hoping to give the impression of mermaids luring sailors on ... or maybe keeping them safe during the storm ...

Love this painting, 'Ulysses and the Sirens' by Herbert James Draper, which was already in the book. I printed the story of that scene onto vellum and attached it to the side of the painting; there's another piece of vellum attached to the left (which I've left open so part of the painting can be seen). Ripped and torn pieces of music script at the bottom alluding to the song of the sirens, and to finish off the page -- a piece of wire threaded into the top right of the page with beads strung through.

In this layout, I worked around the existing picture of the giant serpent, covered the shipwreck it was looking at with blue papers and accented its eye with red glitter. Can't remember where I got the picture of the lady or who the artist is (naughty me, not making a note of it!). Folded back the page to create a pocket to slip the large tag, which has the poem, 'The Mermaid' by Tennyson, printed on it; tied various blue fibres and some pearls on the tag.

Covered the pages with K&Co paper and used a couple of Arthur Rackham prints I had of mermaids. I anchored the print on the left with 2 pearl-like pieces. As the other print has mermaids holding up a large shell filled with jewels, I fixed pieces of jewels on the page, to look as if they're tumbling down to the mermaids. And to complete the layout, 'The Sirens' by William Morris.