This book shows how authors in nineteenth-century Britain used the materials of writing (and of reading, drawing, and handicraft) for inspiration and creative composition. In doing so, it reshapes the sensory history of working on and with paper. These activities were many and varied: Charlotte Brontë composed poems and doodled in the margins of school books, George Eliot recorded writing ideas on her blotter, Elizabeth Barrett Browning sewed paper to paper to edit her poems, and Jane Austen employed straight pins to "cut and paste." Albums provided a playful space to collect and to produce text-and-collage gifts for friends, circumventing print culture for a more intimate book making, as Elizabeth Gaskell and Anna Atkins knew. Notebooks and commonplace books were vital to Eliot, Michael Field, and Emily Brontë as part of a writing process. Writers experimented with crafts and needlework to compose text without paper and ink, most notably in the case of samplers. What writing and drawing happened on—including bibles, sewing patterns, and walls—mattered, as related to, and generative of, the themes of the work. This expansive field of meanings that creativity with textual (and material) things could have was common to the Victorians, but the writers explored here were extravagant even among their self-reflexive contemporaries in their undoing, remaking, miniaturizing, encrypting, reusing, and transforming. The edge of the page, the width of the margin, the covers of the book, were limiting factors, but also provocations to push on further, be radical.

A beautifully illustrated global history of collage from the origins of paper to today While the emergence of collage is frequently placed in the twentieth century when it was a favored medium of modern artists, its earliest beginnings are tied to the invention of paper in China around 200 BCE. Subsequent forms occurred in twelfth-century Japan with illuminated manuscripts that combined calligraphic poetry with torn colored papers. In early modern Europe, collage was used to document and organize herbaria, plant specimens, and other systems of knowledge. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, collage became firmly associated with the expression of intimate relations and familial affections. Fragmentary Forms offers a new, global perspective on one of the world’s oldest and most enduring means of cultural expression, tracing the rich history of collage from its ancient origins to its uses today as a powerful tool for storytelling and explorations of identity. Presenting an expansive approach to collage and the history of art, Freya Gowrley explores what happens when overlapping fragmentary forms are in conversation with one another. She looks at everything from volumes of pilgrims’ religious relics and Victorian seaweed albums to modernist papiers collés by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque and quilts by Faith Ringgold exploring African-American identity. Gowrley examines the work of anonymous and unknown artists whose names have been lost to history, either by accident or through exclusion. Featuring hundreds of beautiful images, Fragmentary Forms demonstrates how the use of found objects is an important characteristic of this unique art form and shows how collage is an inclusive medium that has given voice to marginalized communities and artists across centuries and cultures.

Art Circus! takes the reader on a magical journey into the artistic world where they can discover their creative muse which is waiting to come out and play. It is at heart a technique book for altered artists, but is housed within a wonderful, spectacular fantasy land. The book will bring the reader, the daydreamer, the explorer, the artist, to a place have never been, where they can unleash their artistic dreams and explore hidden worlds through cutting-edge techniques, creative projects, and beautiful images. The book will include easy tutorials on basic digital altering effects for new and vintage images, step by step instruction for projects, a gallery of inspirational projects from other artists, and clip art and vintage images for readers to use in their own projects. The book will cover digital and paper alteration, creating from found and household objects (jars and boxes), will feature playful illustration, vintage imagery, and use a myriad of other mixed-media materials ranging from glitter and wire to crinolin and coloring agents.

Includes designs that can be made with scrap crafting supplies such as wood, stickers, glitter, spray paint, beads, wire, paper clay, plastic foam, mosaic tiles, feathers, rubber stamps, stencils, markers and more!

This inspiring guide covers everything about paper, with 20 fun-filled projects, extraordinary artist profiles, and more.

DIVThe Art of Vintage Journaling and Collage is a distinctive guidebook exploring the art of collage and journaling using unique, collected ephemera from antique stores, flea markets, secondhand shops, and even your own home to unlock your creativity. Capture your thoughts in handmade, illustrated travel journals, recipe keepsake books, and nature and garden sketchbooks and create stunning collages to frame or use as note cards and gift tags to share with family and friends. The Art of Vintage Journaling and Collage presents Maryjo and Sunny Koch's gorgeous work from their books, Vintage Collage-Works and Vintage Collage Journals. There are more than 75 different collage project ideas and over 14 complete journal projects. Basic techniques and project details are illustrated through step-by-step photos and a gallery is included at the back of the book containing ready-to-use vintage clip art. All levels of artist or hobbyist will find this an inspirational and invaluable book./div

More and more scrapbookers and paper artists are seeking clever ways to make their albums and paper projects more interesting and three-dimensional. One of the most exciting ways of accomplishing this is by adding interactive elements, such as doors that open and reveal hidden layers, and envelopes and pockets that hold secret text, personal letters, or special photos. Pockets, Pull Outs and Hiding Places: A Guide to Interactive Scrapbooking, Memory Art and Paper Art teaches the paper engineering techniques for making three dimensional and interactive ôpaper toolsö such as vellum pockets, hinged doors that reveal mini booklets underneath. These tools are applicable to scrapbookers, memory, and paper artists at any level of experience. The tools are also adjustable enough to be used in any style of work.

Studies the way that authors in nineteenth-century Britain used the materials of writing (and reading, drawing, note-taking, and handicraft) for inspiration, experimentation, subordination, and creative composition, with a focus on Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Mary Shelley.