Gesso and Quink

I bought a very inspiring book earlier this year - Textile Translations by Maggie Grey - and have been drooling over it ever since. Maggie also did some supplementary online lessons for those people who have bought the book, making the cover price very good value indeed.

I have worked mostly with paper, card and objects over the last few years, and seem to have a mental block about fabric. I don't know why, I have made many pairs of curtains through my life, and lots of my own and my children's clothes. But textile art is another matter... When I got the book, I didn't have the supplies needed, and now I have the supplies I also have the mental block!

Anyway, to get over my block, I thought I'd try one of the techniques on mount board, instead of craft vilene. I was in a chunky book swap last August, where we all made house shaped pages, and I needed to make some covers for the book.

I glued a selection of torn and crumpled papers onto the mountboard, brushed and stamped with gesso, added a moulded focal piece made form air dry clay in an Enchanted Gallery mould, and sprayed with Quink black ink, and blue-black ink. I also sprayed with a gold color wash spray from Outside the Margins, this doesn't add colour, just very fine gold glimmer. I added another layer of Quink, and finished with a quick light rub of Treasure Gold. Here are the outsides of the book covers:


And here are the insides, the one on the left sprayed with blue-black ink, the one on the right sprayed with black ink:

I need to add some elements to the covers, and bind them to the pages - I may post another picture once the book is bound.