The Love of Little

I love creating little things that sit on shelves

begging to be picked up and looked at.

I love creating the little collages that decorate 

each individual page in this tiny creation. 

I love when I look down on it,

I see glimpses of the decorated pages. 

The back is decorated in one long single piece. 

When closed a small piece of fabric

is wrapped around and secured.

And its littleness is even more pronounced. 

I know not everyone understands the beauty I find  here. 

But that is okay, we are all different. 

Layered Houses

  

I finally finished my collage house concertina style book. 

It opens up showcasing houses patched together 

with bits and pieces of my decorated paper. 

It can be displayed completely open so you can see its whole story,

or so you can see each two page spread. 

I am still not sure what the stories are of these little houses, 

but I am sure that they were inspired by my recent trip to Cuba

where I loved the aged beauty of the buildings.

 They seemed to have layers and layers of stories.  

 I started the layering of this piece by tea staining the watercolour paper 

and then drawing patterned lines on it.  

I added acrylic paint to the background, and the lines almost disappeared.  

I made the houses and moved them around many times before they found their final resting place.  

In the end the torn tear drop shapes were not part of the inside pages.

The covers are made of book board covered with painted black paper. 

The front cover has this little house.....

while the back is decorated with the torn tear drop shapes.

And to give you the scale of this piece - here I am holding the finished book. 

Houses Being Built

I am busy building houses out of the hand decorated paper I shared in my last post.  

My hope was to have the whole piece completed by now,

..... but I am not quite there yet.  

I also learned that painting/decorating parchment paper is not the best idea.  

The paint likes to peel off too easily and it is a bit of a challenge to work with.

  I seem to be unable to locate deli wrap either locally or online (without outrages shipping charges) - and so will continue my search for a thin and sturdy yet okay priced paper to decorate and use in my collages.  

Update - I found some deli paper that I can purchase and ship for a reasonable price and I am excited to get it and give it a try! 

I will share the finished piece as soon as I can.