Marci Senders

Do Chicks Eat Lemons?

I am not quite sure of the answer.I thought I'd post this as my second Illustration Friday entry for sour since lemons are sour. It is a spread of an altered book round robin I am working on. I used to work an altered books much more and in layers like this, I guess this is my more experimental style. It is a color theme project and my color is yellow. It  has been a challenge for me which is why most of my spreads for this project include chicks and lemons. The chicks to the right are from a Victorian book of images I have and I created a packing tape transfer to apply it to the book.
I know I have said this before but I alter books to experiment with techniques like you would in a sketch book. I am just not starting with a blank page, which I find scary. It's really helpful for me to work off of an existing image/pattern/color. When I do work in my sketch book, I find myself gluing down a pattern paper first. I guess I can't seem to start with a "blank canvas". I don't see why you have too.

Whatever Happened to June?

I am not sure what happened. All of a sudden it's July and I have a bunch of images I have yet to post. June was a busy...maybe that's why I haven't had a chance to write about it. Even my birthday passed me by!  Whoops! I took the day off and got my nails done...it was lovely!
Above are part of the True Colors round robin I am in. I am so happy with my yellow submarine that it was hard to ship off. It was fun to layer all the different shades of yellow. I am slowly becoming a fan. I did find all this Laura Ashley fabric I has laying around.
Maybe not for a whole month, but I am going to try to post every day for the next couple of weeks, just to play catch up. Maybe it will help me feel a little less overwhelmed. Like a good cleansing...

My True Color is Mellow Yellow

Front Cover

Back Cover

Opening Spread

Yellow Spread

Sign Out Spread

Here is my latest round-robin altered book project. I haven't participated in one for a while and doing a simple colored theme book sounded like fun and would get my paper-craft juices flowing. As mentioned before, I feel like I work better in other people's books then in my own. I sent this book out into the world to be worked on by 5 other people. There is a strangely shaped pop-up piece that I can't wait to see what everyone does with.  It took me a while to figure out how I wanted to send my book out. I didn't touch any of the other pages...I'll leave that to the artist, they can be whatever they want to it. It is actually two board books taped together so I can get enough spreads. There is a box that comes with the books that I still have and will have decorated before it comes back to me. The colored hearts on the cover are tape, I thought it was so cheesy and was perfect. I am expecting it to be nice and fat when I get it back.  I got the color yellow. Not my favorite color and I don't have much of it in my stash. I have been going through magazines and tearing out all the yellow pages so I don't have to go out and spend money. So far, I really like the effects I am getting. I am trying hard to be green and save green lately as well. I am sure  yellow will be my favorite color by the time I'm done with this project!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle...and Make Art

These images from an altered book tip-in swap have been sitting on my computer for a couple of weeks now. They should all be safe and sound in there new homes. The theme was "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" and the one rule was
to only use scraps. I went right towards my stash of grocery bags...I have quite a collection. This project gave me the perfect excuse to fuse plastic bags. Typically it is a technique used to make waterproof fabric. I wanted to see how I could use it as paper and I just thought layering the logos could make really cool designs After all the pages were cut, I then had the idea to  incorporate a more organic element so I made organic/flower shaped cutouts and sewed in scraps from old book pages. I thought is was a nice, sarcastic contrast to the plastic. I think I had intended to make a lot of just silly faces but somehow it turned out to become more of a statement. The embroidery felt important to me, I couldn't see the pieces being glued on.  I have pics the fronts and the backs here.

Summing Up the Year....

Real Estate!

Well, these are for an alteredbook tip-in swap, the theme was "Houses". They came out more like Brooklyn brownstone apartment buildings, with all different kinds of creatures living in them. I was going for the creepy old Victorian house look but I obviously was inspired by my surroundings. Seems fitting for this to be my last big project of the year since it was one year ago, this week, that I made an offer for my apartment...which ended up consuming a good part of my year. Things probably started calming down probably around the same time I started working on these. How ironic!

P.S. Yes, most of the windows do open and shut

Happy Blogaversary to Me!

I'm 2! Well, my blog is anyway. I have been blogging everyday this month, starting from the 2nd. I don't know if I am going to continue blogging so much. I have been really productive and feel caught up, in regards to my posting and my projects. I now feel like I need a blog vacation. We'll see.
Oh, this is another spread from my sketch/travel/Europe book I have been working on. My new thing: everything looks better when you cover it with a dress pattern.

Untitled Sketch

Back At It Again

Labels + faces, something I have been thinking about and playing around with for awhile. I just can't seem to stop working on this book I have been altering. I'm just going with it! Unfortunetly, my "To Do" list isn't getting any smaller.

Untitled Trees

Seemed fitting to post some altered book pages with trees for Christmas. The girl, especially, was inspired by atleast 5 other artists that I can't remember and probably ceated the concept much better. I know, not very original looking right now. I have been playing around with the idea of giving trees human characteristic ever since the "Brooklyn Tornado" this fall street took about five old trees that seemed as if they were going to be there forever. Eventually, I will figure out a way to make my people/tree idea to become more original...that's why you sketch. Still a work in progress
Happy Holidays!

P.S. Since I don't celebrate Christmas, I saw P.S. I Love You and had Japanese food. The movie was cute, really sappy, great clothes, bring tissues.

Untitled

A spread from a novel I have been altering for over a year now. It has become my of a sketchbook than anything else. I picked it up again in the last couple of weeks. I work in it a little bit, go to another spread, cover something I did in the past that I no longer like, start a new spread...It's my continous week in progess. It's just good to have something hanging you can always go back to. I feel like it grows and changes with me and I am in no rush to complete it. It has a fairytale/travel theme, more so because it is a novel about traveling through Europe and I have been using a lot of vintage travel labels. i have been living with it for so long, it may just be a forever going work in progress.