La Mer ~ an upcycled book

front of book - pre drawings

one of the spreads - pre drawings

I received some art supplies last week and they stuffed brown paper in the box to keep the items from moving around, I have a hard time throwing away good paper, so I thought to use this for a try-out project. I thought I could have the kids make something like this maybe, but then again, maybe it is a little too time consuming for them, maybe if we just did 2 or 3 pages. Well anyway, I finished mine and wanted to show you. It's kind of a twist on Carla's junkmail booklet {that I am currently also working on btw} So I have used brown paper in different sizes, just ripped at the edges, layered it to make it look old {this took quite some time, coating both sides a few times and the drying in between} and I thought I'd like to theme the images and since the colours and the texture made me think about the ocean, I made it all deep sea related. So the trick is that every pages images continue with their lines into the next page, where those lines make up different images again, it's like a puzzle {and this also takes some time and patiences and going back and forth} So much FUN ! Oh, and of course there also is a Mermaid :)

Oil

No I am not talking about oil as in oil-paint, but oil as in oil spill. I just needed to release my frustration and quickly do a page in my journal about the oil spill that is happening here after a containership hit a reef in front of my new hometown last week. The ship is not in a great shape and needed to be abandoned for days because of bad weather and is leaking crude oil and the beaches are now black and the seabirds are dying and the ocean is polluted, it is the biggest ecological disaster New Zealand has ever known. I have decided I do NOT like 2011 and wish for the new year to come quickly.