One of the most challenging projects mentally was this November's Intellectual Collaboration with Kristin at Space Paste Press. We decided to do two altered books. Neither of us had tried an altered book yet, but with so many book artists who have done such cool things with manipulation of an already existing book, we had to try our hands at it. Each book we chose would dictate how the book was altered. The first and most difficult challenge for me was to find two books I didn't mind cutting into. This goes against my nature with books as of late…

In an effort to have a less taxing project for October, Kristin (of Space Paste Press) and I decided that we would have a project that would only take five days. This was appealing because we had been delayed a bit in meeting that month and did not want to fall behind. The project would include a series of renderings of something that may change over the five day period. Each of these five images would be done in a different medium: graphite, ink, colored pencil, water color and print. The binding would be a simple one allowing the focus…

Going back to one of the earliest book formats, the Space Paste Press and Spring Leaf Press collaboration for September was a scroll that had a science theme. I chose to depict the reproduction cycle of ferns, a plant that unrolls when it grows. The closure for the scroll is a wooden button and hemp cord. The scroll is backed with burlap and the imagery is put together with paste and paint. The illustrations were printed on tissue with an inkjet printer and layered with paste. The fern, layered behind the small images, is cut out of a thin green…