An 'Altered' Magazine...

If you're anything like me, you won't be able to part with some of your favourite issues of your favourite magazine without making full use of them first. This is why I decided to have a go at turning one of my old magazines into a piece of artwork. I got this idea from a friend who owns a craft shop/studio where I've been going to paint and learn ever since I was six years old!

My chosen magazine to 'alter' was the June 2012 issue of Company Magazine. I love the design and layout of this magazine anyway, so I didn't want to completely mask it in artwork.

Instead I used the best features and images in the magazine as a base, and built up layers of paint or collage around them.

An essential tool for painting on magazine pages is Gesso. A thin layer instantly turns a glossy magazine page into a papery, almost chalky surface. Also an under layer of Gesso allows you to wipe off any paint that goes on top easily. As you can see in this picture, it gives the look of bits of faded text peeking through the paint...a rather cool effect.

Of course I couldn't paint over some of my favourite articles. That's the beauty of altering a magazine, you can pick and choose which bits you use and don't use; you're effectively improving something you'd enjoy looking at anyway.






Another way to use your old magazines to the full, is to cut out any body parts (I know that sounds a bit sadistic) and use them in your altered pages as I've done here with the eyes. I'm planning to go into this technique in more detail in a future post.

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed altering this magazine and let me tell you, its much cheaper and quicker than buying a new sketchbook! Enjoy the pics...


Emma x