Shopping List Saturday

1)Pale Berries, a pocket fairy tale book no4, lapommestories 2)PATIENCE book of handmade paper ElenaMary 3)Mail Book (small) badbooks 4)ZINE My Perfect World ninkumpoop 5)fabric Art Journal patc9195 6)Altered quilted felt and textile book FiBreRomance 7)mixed media collage nature journal album ephemera stamps tags altered book IrishEyesArt 8)Seeking nelliewortman
Created using flickr toys Mosaic Maker

Welcome to this week's Shopping List Saturday! A slightly shorter list this week, but carefully chosen nonetheless.

These art books fascinate me, and I think this fascination stems from my college years (too long ago to mention!). I completed a degree in Graphic Design, and specialised in Illustration and for me, this opened many doors of experimentation. I became completely immersed in collage and creating vivid sketchbooks based on my own sketches with snippets of magazine/book illustrations pasted in and painted over for a layered effect.
Similar to the ACEOs of last week, these art books go one step further. I like the fact that artists take an existing book, alter it and create something new from it - whether it is the cover and spine with brand new pages, or the worked-into existing pages with a new cover attached. I also admire those artists who create books completely from scratch!

The idea that a book can be paper or card; wood or feathers; beads or fabric; drawn, printed or embroidered is wonderful! This takes the humble (and always beautiful) book to a new level. I like that the book becomes a work of art, a tactile thing that provides pleasure from touch as well as the usual visual stimulus. There are endless ways these books can lead you as an artist, and I find that incredibly stimulating and inspiring. Think of all of those emotions and ideas that bimble about in your head, and how they can be translated in these mini journeys of thoughts, experiences and feelings. Are you feeling this too??

Just a Minute ..... in July

Running.......home from school, all set for the summer holidays. My favourite day.

Discovering......this amazing book, The Art of Embroidery by Francoise Tellier-Loumagne.

Surprising...... myself, to see that I'm in another Treasury. Thank you, Liane (enhabiten: http://www.enhabiten.etsy.com/)

Speculating.....on the whereabouts of the crock of gold: surely it's just there - at the end of our garden??!

Bringing....the glorious outdoor sunshine inside.

Learning.... to become a very modern girl (unlike her mum! Don't grow up afraid of a computer!)

Thank you to August Street Blog(http://www.august-street.blogspot.com/) for this inspiring meme. Do you want to join in with 'Just a Minute...', once a month? Pop over to her blog and let her know.

It's On My Desk Wednesday....

Bit of an invasion today! Well, it is the school holidays....so my table (actually, our dining table) is a shared workspace. Youngest is continuing her quest to build the biggest ever lego city, but there are limitations - how much she can physically fit onto her two thirds of the table top, and the biggest factor....how many bricks we have! Not enough, apparently! She's realised that low-rises will spread the bricks further, and I'm relieved because then I don't run the risk of accidentally bulldozing prized tower blocks...you know how that goes!


So, what's on my desk today? It's all looking rather tidy, don't you think? My new best friend, the computer, (I admit it...that's a bit sad!) is displaying my new etsy product.


I must mention those two books - such inspiring reads, both of them: the bottom book is 'three-dimensional EMBROIDERY' by Janet Edmonds. Joyous items made by manipulating, painting and stitching various fabrics - art, all of them. The book on top is 'the art of embroidery / inspirational stitches, textures and surfaces' by Francoise Tellier-Loumagne. This is an absolute feast for the eyes in glorious technicolour - amazing close-up shots of unbelievable stitchery, based on images from the natural world and everyday life. I could eat this book, it's so fantastic.


ps: if you want to take part with the 'on my desk wednesday' blog meme, pop over to kootoyoo's blog and join the list of players!