Two Altered Books I made last month

Confused about Altered Books?

Why would artists create an Altered Book, and if they sell them what do other artists do with them? 

I asked myself the same question for years. I thought Altered Books and Junk Journals were a complete waste of effort. I was mystified about them.

What’s the point? Why bother?

…… Jump forward a couple of years, and here I am – knee deep in collage papers, unable to stop creating them! So let me introduce you to my new (current) obsession.

What is an Altered Book?

When you take an existing printed book, and repurpose it into a different type of book like a journal, it’s known as an Altered Book.

How the book is altered can vary by artist. It can get a complete overhaul, or simply be subjected to a few tweaks. A common approach is to cover the pages in paint, collage, or other pieces of ephemera, and add pockets or signatures of plain or watercolour paper. Some artists glue pages together if their book has flimsy pages, but I prefer a different approach.

Is a Junk Journal the same as an Altered Book?

An Altered Book can be a Junk Journal. But a Junk Journal doesn’t have to be made from an Altered Book.

There are multiple different levels of Junk Journals. A pure junk journal is made completely of junk and found items, and is handmade from scratch, whereas an Altered Book can be made from a pre-existing book as its framework.

In the Junk Journal world, the definition lines are extremely blurred, as many junk journal artists use their own papers, printed pages, and other new items in their junk journals.

What are Altered Books Used For?

Have you ever been put off from creating because you’re faced with a blank page? There’s nothing more intimidating than a pristine new sketchbook. It doesn’t encourage inspiration or invite experimentation. Instead, all you can think of is “I don’t want to ruin it”.

When you use an Altered Book as a blank canvas for your journal, the book comes with history, which lends itself as a place of creativity and discovery. You can add collage onto the pages, write on them, or use pages in your journal as a scrap book.

Don’t we all have those little fragments that we want to keep for reference or sentimental reasons, but have nowhere to put them? Or is that just me? Well an altered book art journal is the ideal place for adding and storing fragments from your life.

My Approach to Creating Altered Books

Type of Books I like to Alter

I like to source hand-backed books, because of the structure this provides. I usually head straight to the non-fiction section at my local charity shop, and it’s spine width and book size that determines which book I choose. I also look at the kids book sections, because they tend to be smaller and always have a nice sturdy cover. But it’s always worth looking at the fiction section for potential hard-backed books too. Basically, I look at all the books, and see which one speaks to me.

In my current pending pile, I have kids books, kids books with padded covers, small cookery books, and a variety of gift books (the small hard-backed books designed as lighthearted presents for different birthday milestones) – which not only come is a variety of unique sizes, but they provide a good supply of text that is good for repurposing in collage or journals.

I like to incorporate the title or part of the title into the Altered Book if it’s relevant or interesting. I made one altered book from a Portuguese language book called The Pleasure of Reading, so I altered that to The Pleasure of Art. The other book was a Dr. Seuss book If I Ran The Circus, and I liked that title, even though it doesn’t have any relevance to the journal I collaged. I just liked the quirkiness of it, and the way it creates a connection between the original and the altered book.

I know some artists like to embrace the book’s theme and let the original topic of a book guide the design decisions of the Altered Book. For example a travel guide gets altered into a travel journal, or a gardening book gets altered into a gardening or planting journal.

How I like to Alter my Books (and other design decisions)

• I like to keep some pages in the book, but take some pages out to make room to add collage paper and pockets to the existing pages, and add new page signatures of sketch or watercolour paper.
• Rather than gluing flimsy pages together, I like to wrap my collage paper around the outer edge of the paper to create sturdier pages.
• I like torn edges on the collage pages I add, rather than a scissor-cut edge, and I like a grungy feel to my journals. I don’t want them to look pristine. I want them to look slightly battered and lived in, but I do want to keep a little percentage of the book looking refined and pulled together.
• Much as I love a mass of colour in my sketches, I’ve been experimenting with a limited palette in my journals to create more cohesive feel.

How I Bind my Altered Books

Binding has been my biggest challenge. I have done a lot of bookbinding, and create a lot of hand-bound watercolour books with different binding styles. But now that I’ve been keeping some of the pages in my altered books, it has limited my binding options. At the moment I’ve been using a simple loop binding that extends the entire length of the spine. But I need to do more research to find some alternatives.

Both of these books have the same binding style. On the blue book I hid the binding by covering the spine, whereas on the yellow book the binding is exposed.

These first two Altered Book Art Journals have been really fun to create. Even though I’ve watched a few Altered Book videos and Instagram tutorials – I haven’t managed to find another artist that makes their altered books the same way I do. I know there has to be artists out there, I just need to travel down a few more rabbit holes to find them.

I’m working on new books and plan on sharing them here. I even considering doing some video flip-throughs of the journals I create, so that I have them for reference.