Circus chunky page & gesso/mag atc's

When I was younger I was totally into reading all of Stephen King's wonderfully spooky books. One that particularly stayed with me was "It". Evil clown from the sewers....stuff that kids nightmares are made of. I know that some people are scared of clowns, I'm not, but as our chunky theme this month for the Altered Book Club is Circus, I thought I'd re-visit the nasty world of evil clowns. I can't wait to see all the varied pages that the girls in this group come up with....I've seen Nat's and it's wonderful! So here's mine....front...



and back....

Yeah, I know.....bad, nasty, evil clowns....sorry, I just don't see them that way, especially as my pet nick-name for my husband for over 25 years is "Clown"! He particularly laughed at the "Evil clowns need love too"....thinks it may become his catch-cry. hahaha

Yesterday at the atc class I taught we did the gesso & magazine image technique from Bernie's book. The girls were not particularly looking forward to this class as it meant more than just cutting out an image and sticking it down....they actually had to draw and call upon their own ideas & inventiveness which had them reaching down in the depths of their creative souls (sounds like a "moving" experience...no?). After being shown the basics, off they all went to fabricate their own little piece of art.

All was going well until one of them (who shall remain nameless....."L"!!!), decided that the nose she had drawn looked suspiciously like a particular male appendage. Of course, she was ready to bin it but I told her she had to try to resurrect it...it was rather funny...had the other girls in stitches. But resurrect it we did, see if you can pick which one it is! Below are the atc's that the girls did in class. Some are not quite finished, need some embellishments, and maybe a couple of words but you'll get the gist of it...as promised girls, no names on them ;-)

Something that I try to point out in my classes is you won't produce fantastically perfect atc's in a class where you're learning a technique for the first time. This is a jump-off point, you go home and if you like the technique, you do it a few more times, hopefully put a couple of examples into your own "technique book" that you keep. Not all techniques/styles are liked by all people but the more you expose yourself to different things, the easier it is to work out what is your own "style" and what sits comfortably with you. End of lecture! lol