Friday, June 03, 2011

The Family Bible

Many moons ago you may remember me posting about being commissioned to alter a family bible.  You can see the original post here.  The bible is with it's new owner now so I can share a few pics of it.  ;o)

It would be fair to say that this commission has been something of a challenge!  The sheer size and weight of this beast of a book made it difficult to work with at times and it didn't behave how I expected it to alot of the time.  The ideas I had for the piece originally evolved as I worked and the finished piece is quite a way from how I envisaged but that's the nature of my work and an aspect I love about it!  ;o)    The basic premise of the bible is that of life's journey. 

Here we go with some pics....

The first spread... 

 

The second spread...



The third spread...



The last spread...




And the drawers...




Throughout the piece I used Brusho Crystal Colour watercolour ink powders to colour the pages and also incorporated crayon, pencil and gesso.  The twice repeated T S Eliot quote, "In my beginning is my end", and all the words on the spreads are inkjet acetate transfers (using Ecover All Purpose Cleaner).  The little tin drawers represent mind, body and spirit.  The leaves in niches on the last spread and the lock of hair in the tin representing body were both found between the pages of the bible and it seemed appropriate that they were incorporated back into the piece, connecting old and new and completing the journey. 

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

this is brilliant Maz - love the niches and the pull-out boxes are just superb - excellent stuff :)

Jill

Becky Mairi Farrell said...

This looks amazing. Well done for getting it finished! Love all the niches and drawers and the bits yuo've incorporated.

artfulzebra said...

Thanks for your comments, Becky & Jill. ;o) The recipient loves her new look bible too, phew! ;o)

elena nuez said...

amazing artworks, really looooove them!

congrats and greetings from Spain,
elena

artfulzebra said...

Thanks Elena, so kind of you to say ;o)

Marian

Nuvofelt said...

This is lovely. Thanks for the link to get me here.