The Art of
Jeff and Terry Owenby
Altered Book Pages by Terry Owenby
The images on this page are from my altered book
"The Edge of Sadness".
You can click on any of the images to see them in large view.
"The Edge of Sadness" is the original title of this altered book. Even though the book ended up being a "techniques book", I realized I was subconsciously keeping my work relevant to the title. I still miss my mother and grandparents; even though they have been gone for a long time, they have become a big part of this book.
The page above is the first page in "The Edge of Sadness". It is a photo of me and my mother on the farm in Minnesota where I was raised, until age 11. I painted the page with green acrylics and inked the edges black. I did a gel transfer of the photo onto the page of another old book and glued it into the altered book. There are several pages of my mother in this book as she died suddenly when I was 14 and the sadness of those years has never left me.
This image was found on a Christmas gift bag and too beautiful to throw away. The background is an acrylic and glaze mix, with the color thinned with more glaze for painting over the quote. "Peace...It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. It means to be in the midst of these things and still be calm in your heart." The kind of peace I long for.
This is a photo of me and my grandmother, who later signed the autograph book of my teens with "I love you dearly, my dear Terry girl." I did a gray acrylics and glaze mix for the background, again lightening it with more glaze for covering the writing and edges of the photo. The flower was cut from a magazine and adds a much needed touch of color.
The background for this page is an acylic and glaze mix. The photo and old linoleum pattern were aged with sandpaper.
This spread was made by painting the pages with white acrylics, then laying down torn black tissue paper while the paint was wet. When pressing the tissue paper into place, the acrylics seeped through, giving a wonderful ghostly effect.
Once again, a page about my mother, this time using her graduation phto. I gave the pages a wash of acrylics. I don't remember the entire process on this page, but I do know it was a blender pen transfer. The opposite page contains journaling, too private to include here.
