Altered Books Discoveries

In this altered book, you can open it, then open it again. It includes artifacts from past projects and some strange writing made by pasting parts of one page over another. A door opens to reveal a scene.

Aerotine MacWhinnie

Arianna Crawford

The book above is meant to symbolize The Art Room -- a creative place!

Altered Books Expressions

Students are finishing up altered books projects. The only rule to this project is: There are no rules. Students decide what to do with them. Sarah Slocum created the one above. An educational encyclopedia comes to life through the assemblage of toy, puzzle, bookmark, reading light, and other materials.

This one is by Brittany Holmes. The cover is painted and the interior is filled with collage, puzzle pieces, beads, sequins, and other objects. The pictures below are from the interior of the book.

Altered Books II

Reading Gives you Wings
by Sophie Lackner

Circus Book
by Basti Syed

Here are two finished examples of the altered books ninth graders are working on. I've made videos of them to show how that, like mobiles, they rotate.

Altered Books

I've never made altered books before, but my ninth grade art students and I are learning together. The Waverly Library had several boxes of books that were headed for recycling. We offered to recycle them -- into art! Students have shown a lot of creativity in coming up with their own creative solutions in transforming books into art.

This book is called Doorway to the Galaxy (by Arianna Crawford).
What is an altered book?

An altered book is a form of mixed media artwork that changes a book from its original form into a different form, altering its appearance and/or meaning.

An altered book artist takes a book (old, new, recycled or multiple) and cuts, tears, glues, burns, folds, paints, adds to, collages, rebinds, gold-leafs, creates pop-ups, rubber-stamps, drills, bolts, and/or be-ribbons it. The artist may add pockets and niches to hold tags, rocks, ephemera, or other three-dimensional objects. Some change the shape of the book, or use multiple books in the creation of the finished piece of art.

Altered books may be as simple as adding a drawing or text to a page, or as complex as creating an intricate book sculpture. (Wikipedia, 2010).

Some students are choosing to paint right on the pages, and others are making collages in the book.

If you are interested in seeing a gallery of work by artists who specialize in altared books, visit this website: www.altaredbookartists.com