BEST Collaborative Book Project Sneak Peak

I'm participating in the first ever collaborative book project hosted by the Bookbinding Etsy Street Team (BEST for short). About twenty book artists are making pages for three different themed books. Each one in my group is producing the same page seven times, one for each participant and a show piece for the team. All of us will receive a full set of pages to bind into our own artist book. It's a very cool idea which I understand is done regularly, but this is my first. I've been a little anxious about my pages but they're done now and leaving for Utah tomorrow!


The poem upon which my book is based is titled Desert Lizard by one of our artists. I don't know if I have the right to print it here, but basically its got a desert-y, rusty feel to it, and trains and oil tankers figure in as well. Lots of cool imagery. My page is actually made from a sheet of sandpaper. The gritty side is painted with acrylic paints in hot desert colors. Since sandpaper cracks when bent, I've covered the fold with linen tape that's been painted with a textured rust paint. The tape wasn't sticking very well, so I used copper stained glass tape to cover all the edges. I like the shiny element the copper tape adds.

To the other side, I affixed a magazine page that had been treated with Citrasolve a la a CPS article from a few months ago. They're all different, but most are dark, suggesting to me a night landscape. I actually had these already and was just waiting for a place to use them. I painted and stamped the page just a little and added a clunky embellishment made from a big rubber washer and a couple of smaller metals ones that I aged, glued and wired together with copper wire. I was thinking "train" when I made these, but it's possible that they would stand in for the sun as well.


Can't wait to see everyone elses' contributions!