Playing with Board Books

I Love to Play ART.
Bonnie, one of the co-host of the Cabinet of Curiosities challenge ask if I would share with her the preparation steps for playing art in board books. It is really quite simple and I could tell her in a few short sentences but...well, you know me. I love showing how and telling so here is a little tutorial for Bonnie. This way I can add a few of my little tips.

So here is where I'm about to play. I think it is fun to see other artist studio play space so I'm giving a little glimpse of mine. See how all the fun stuff is closing in on me and yes, I haven't put away anything from last night's art party.
Do you see the shiny on the book? Well just use a little piece of fine sandpaper and rub away. Now here is a tip. Notice that I have put a wash cloth under the book. This is to grab or catch the sand dust as it comes off. There will be more than you think.
Notice here that I did not try to sand the image away, just the shine. In some cases you may want to see a bit of image or words in the background. The little board books are so fun because they are so sturdy and come in different shapes and sizes.
Any gesso will do. I happen to use Golden and I really like. This step is to just paint a coat of gesso over the whole book. A thin coat will dry pretty fast and because the pages are "boards", you can pretty much keep going with the gesso until done. But here is another tip: if you work on more than one book at a time, just switch back and forth. This will give a little dry time and will keep your brush busy so it doesn't dry out.
Let it stand to finish drying. If you are impatient, use a heat gun to speed up the drying but it really doesn't take very long.
Bonnie wanted to know what paints or products I use. That would be Golden but I guess you can see that. I'm sure any acrylic will do just fine but I do think the tube or heavy body acrylic is best simply because they will dry fast. Now here is another tip: paint right out of tube and you lose none of the precious pigment on a pallet.

Painting is the fun part for me. Painting right out of the tube I just keep adding colors and building depth with the paint layers. And here is another tip: notice how dry my brush is. I usually go from tube to tube and page to page without washing the brush. Saving paint. In other words each page will have a color from the one before. Like green follows this yellow page and what makes green? Right. A little bit of yellow with blue.
This last picture is just to give you the Tip of the day: I keep an old book handy right beside me to use when it is time to clean the brush. I first wipe the brush on a page until no pigment comes off and then I dip (I don't swish) it into my water jar and paint a page with the wash of color. Very little paint gets wasted. Then I swish to clean the brush. You never know, on another day, I will need just such a piece of paper for a collage or whatever.

I hope this helps, Bonnie. As you can see, it is very easy. Hey, if anybody has some tips...leave us comment. Thanks.

More later,
Sharon