Black Mask spread

My latest spread for my Unmasked sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project uses a lot of orange which is rather appropriate for today when a new king will be crowned in The Netherlands. He is the latest member of the House of Orange to reign over the country where I was born. Amazingly I left back when Queen Juliana was still on the throne, which makes me feel ancient. He is also the first man to rule the place after 3 queens and one queen/regent.

The sketchbook is one of a line of them done for the Sketchbook Project (you can see the previous ones here), and is dedicated to Masks although made for the Capes, Masks and Tights theme. It's made by collaging the pages with snippets of paper from a variety of sources and using matte medium to hold it all down before adding watercolour paints, washi tape, and stamping, until I was happy with how the pages looked.

 Here is my favourite bit from this spread. I just like how that dreamlike face comes up from the depths.

The final touch is the addition of the black fabric mask, also adhered with matte medium. Because of the layers of paper and paint the pages of the sketchbook weren't really sturdy enough to cope so I sewed some of them together to provide a more solid background and it also meant I didn't have to worry about the paints leaking through to the back. You can see the sewing line clearly above. I could just as easily have glued them together but I prefer to use my sewing machine. That way I know they won't come apart!

I have the feeling that I'm going to find it rather more difficult than in previous years to part with this sketchbook but it will be in the collection of the Brooklyn Art Library for all time to come as well as being present online in digitized form.