"Les Papillons" Pages 8-

Hi, Everyone,

Thank you everyone for your wonderful comments on my art book, "Les Papillons".
Below are photos of the final 8-12 pages and the back inside cover.

The black bark pattern, ink splatters, and hollyhocks are all made by daubing black paint through various stencils.  All the butterfly images were all found on google and attached to the pages by gel medium transfer.  On the bodies of the butterflies are metal clock hands, game spinners, picture hangers, and decorative nuts all attached with heavy gel medium.  

The black cup rings and ink splatters are both made by daubing black paint through stencils.  This time on the bodies of the butterflies are decorative bolts, antique typewriter keys, and memo pins.  The decorative handwriting is my own.  To create it, I used a long tipped bottle filled with 2/3 fluid matte medium and 1/3 black paint.  The fluid matte medium thins the paint so it flows out of the bottle easy enough to write with, while not making the paint transparent.

The diamond and ink splatters are both made by daubing black paint through stencils.

Don't you LOVE the antique monocle on the body of the last butterfly!

Finishing the Pages:

BEFORE attaching any of the metal embellishments to the book, I wanted to antique the pages.

To give the pages that aged brown look, I made a mixture of 1/2 glazing medium with 1/2 brown paint and painted two facing pages at a time.  I let the glazing mixture sit for 30 seconds then I began removing the glazing in the centre of the pages with a baby wipe working my way toward the edges.  I used a lot of baby wipes to scrub the colour into the putty on the pages and removing most of the colour from the centre of the pages.  The entire book was done like this.  

After the pages were antiqued with glazing medium, I attached all the metal embellishments with heavy gel medium on the bodies of the butterflies.

To seal the pages I painted Fluid Matte Medium (which is clear paint) over all the pages.  This will protect the putty from flaking off.

To protect the pages even more and to create the soft supple feel of leather, I rubbed a thin layer of Dorland's Wax over each of the pages as well.  I absolutely love the feel of the pages.

To bind the book I placed all the pages on top of each other, poked holes through all the layers with a Big Bite, then laced ribbon through the holes and tied a bow on the outside spine.

This is my favourite art book to date!

The cover is folded back and clipped revealing the metal filagree.  I love the acetate wings over the butterfly image on the postcard as well as the heart shaped keyhole on the body of the butterfly.  In my world all books need book jewellery so to finish off the spine are three colours of antique ribbon with a beautiful key dangling off.

Have fun creating!