A mixed media book cover

Opium Dreams

This was so much fun to make! It involved glue, paint and acrylic wax. Three of my favourite messy components. It was fairly messy. Luckily I for once remembered to put down newspaper before beginning - hello flat deposit, I will see you again.

This technique was recommended to me by my mother based on the work of the fabulous Beryl Taylor. Beryl Taylor is a mixed media artist. This means she uses a variety of materials to create her work, including fabric, paints, dyes, glue, paper, etc.. The list goes on and on.

Her work is so beautiful:

Wings, Beryl Taylor

Go to her website and have a good nose at her work. It is inspiring. She also runs classes which I'm sure must be great fun to attend.

Anyway, back to my modest book cover...

I made it by getting a piece of calico, coating it in a mixture of PVA glue and water then sticking down pieces of paper napkin (pick one with a pretty pattern).

Next I placed a sheet of tissue paper on top and paint-brushed PVA glue/water over the top to keep it in place.

Then I had to wait a long time for it to dry as it was quite sodden. Speed this step up by using a hair dryer to dry it.

Once it was dry I whipped out my water colour dyes (I used Koh I Noor Travel Sketch Set) and started painting on details.

Once I was satisfied, and the paint had dried, I painted over the whole thing with acrylic wax. This made the whole effect nice and glossy. Then I trimmed the whole thing to size and sewed it onto my nominated notebook.  

The yellow piece to the right above is one I experimented on at the same time but have yet to make into anything. The process was the same except that for this one I also stuck down scraps from wrapping paper, stamped it with my initial and sewed metallic thread lines onto it. The metallic thread didn't work so well as it kept snapping in the machine.