Saturday, January 26, 2008

Tip in Page for AB



The dream keepers house.
Tip in page for fantasy themed altered book.

Paper doilie, magazine images, book images, paint and recycled dream catcher pendant.

This is the front of my tip in and it's not quite finished, I have to do the reverse side before I can add some thread to this side. I think that will take away the hard edges that are bothering me at the moment! I will also add some sort of thread or beading to the dream catcher too. I found the dream catcher (broken) in the 50c basket at the 2nd hand shop.
Fantasy is not usually the realm I would choose to work in but this page isn't actually going to be mine. It will on it's way to Spain in the next few weeks along with a few others I am making as 'thank yous' to some lovely artists who have been working in my 'bohemian' themed AB. I have no idea why they are called 'tip in's!'
Tip in's are basically pages that are made from paper or card and created as per the creating artist's style. The page is then sent to another artist who has the altered book it has been made for. That artist then chooses how to add them to the book..binding them, using pockets, gluing them in etc. It's a great way of doing collaborative art and it's cheaper/safer to post a page and not a parcel so quite a good option if the trade is an international one. The only real down fall that I think they have is that you don't get to see the whole book. It's awesome sitting down with a cuppa and exploring someones AB when they arrive in the mail! There's always things to discover and inspire you and you feel more connected to the project. That said they are equally enjoyable to make and receive!

Thank you for all the comments on my AB pages below. This art form is seriously addictive! I have (shock horror! Surprise!) answered the questions that were asked! Have a great week ahead y'all!
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6 comments:

Bev said...

Very interesting to hear about the Tip ins and ABs. It seeme a great way of making multinational collaborative work (like blogging can be electronically), but through the post!

I have come across these Dream Catchers for the first time recently on Sandollar's blog, and they are apparently American Indian, so appreciate the American Indian figure to the bottom left. The Dream Catcher's House sounds like quite a magical and beautiful place, and I see you have decorated the collage with an elaborate lacy pattern (a doiley? all your collecting comes in useful lol). Perhaps the people are walking to this mystical place, deep in the heart of the forest, as many fairy tale houses are. Love this picture.

Bobbie said...

Lisa, I love everything about this tip in page so far. The dream catcher looks like a mandala and I love the little houses at the top of the page, the bridge leading into the dream and the funky people. The colors are outstanding.

I remembered something about tip in's being something about book making. Try looking here:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~preserve/repair/html/tipsingle.htm

John M. Mora said...

I like this composition and also your gentle color palette. It is cool to make a collective work, but then who keeps it?

Crazy night here (home, kids to bed, etc) - cannot linger.

Mick said...

I like this too but am certainly curious to see this once both sides are done and the stitching is added. I'm sure that step will make a world of difference.

By the way, a tip in was a common bookbinders practice in the past when letterpress printing was less able to handle both color and black and white at the same time. Most commonly found in art books, the backside of a color lithograph of an artwork would receive a bead of glue across the top quarter inch and carefully placed into the book by hand, tipped in, onto a blank page. In this instance, where pages from the collaborative book finally come together, they will be organized and collated, or tipped in, preceding the final binding process.

Irene said...

I had left a comment on the previous post with questions about altered books, but apparently it got lost.

Anyway, now I do know a little bit more about the process. You send each other pages and paste them in your book, or you pass altered books around until they come back to you. Is that the way it goes?

Either way, it sounds terrific and I had never heard of it, but it seems to me that you put a lot of effort into making a page as wonderful as possible. It probably requires all sorts of imagination and a lot of background in making collages and general art.

I hope you show us more of these pages, because now I am really curious.

Lucky Dip Lisa said...

I hadn't made the mandala connection yet! Your right though ofcourse Bobbie and Bev! Thanks fot the link Bobbie, I will check it out.

John, usually everyone has a book if it is in a round robin..I do work in theirs and them in mine so we all end up with something just not usually the something we made! Tip in's are the same. I actually sent a book to Spain to be hosted by an artist I have met through the internet and in return I have hosted hers..I'm doing the fantasy tip in's as a thankyou to the artists who she got to do spreads in mine.

Mick- that is wonderful information! Thankyou!

Sweet Irene, I am glad you want to see more as I'm really into these at the moment!
Oh and no you don't need a great deal of experience in any art form to do AB's. Just a natural urge to use the pages as a canvas of sorts! You could doodle and write poetry on it's pages if you desired too. I just happen to like paint, glue and scissors...

Some people are moritified at the thought of doing these things to books..some of us see it as giving them new life!