Booksale

Every year the UMBC library has at least one book sale where they sell some of their really old books for dirt cheap. My roomate and I always look forward to this sale because some of the books they sell are really beautiful and are great for altered book and collage projects. Heres my book sale booty. . .

this year i only bought 3 books, my roomie went a little crazy and bought 6

i thought this one had really cool illustrations. its written in a different language too

this book has my sister's initials, I love the gold

I think 2 of the books I bought will be really good for collages and chine colle, but I have a special project in mind for the one with my sister's initials. I want to take out the pages and insert new blank pages too make it into a sketch/notebook for my sister. I plan on using some of the existing pages and text to make some interesting dividers and collages within the new pages. I found this really great website that shows you how to convert old books into sketchbooks so I'm pretty excited to get started.

A lot of places sell old books and there are tons of projects you can do with them! Some of my favorite places to snoop around for old books are antique stores and yard sales. Old books are really just too beautiful to go to waste, so don't let them get thrown away! Give them new life through your creativity:)

Circular Painting

I thought this piece was really cool. It's a time lapse, stop motion video filmed on a circular wall in South Africa. The various artists who put this together expressed their interpretations, concerns, and hopes about today's environmental situation on this unusual canvas.

Circular Painting from Fly on the Wall on Vimeo.

Here are the artists who were involved

Bryan Devlin
Luis Tolosana
Warren Lewis
Ree Treweek
Daniel Ting Chong
Mike Morocco
Toyah Moon Humphreys
Paul Ressel
Josh Ginsburg

Dia de los muertos

Last weekend my family had our annual Dia de los Muertos fiesta. "Day of the Dead" is one of our favorite traditions because its a very meaningful and happy way to honor and celebrate the lives of passed loved ones. My family also has a lot of artistic energy and this tradition really is about celebrating life as well as creativity. We don't come from a Mexican heritage, but we have kind of adopted the tradition and we celebrate it every year with friends and family in our own way.

We celebrated this year at my aunt and uncles new house. Everything was really colorful and warm and the alter that they arranged was incredibly beautiful. We all added photos and mementos to the alter as well some sugar skulls we decorated that night.

our beautiful alter

everyones makin sugar skulls!

I made these to bring back home with me