If you want to develop your creativity, artistic taste and just spend your free time to good use, try creating artbooks. What is an artbook? A graphic album (from the English Artbook) is a collection of images, illustrations and photographs collected under the cover as an album. Most often, its contents are united by a common theme. The images may include works by one artist or works of the same genre.
Artbooks: what is a graphic album?
An art book is understood to mean books created and illustrated by the author himself. In addition, there are fanzines - small circulation periodicals issued by adherents of a certain direction of science fiction, music and so on.
Very often, our memory is stored in the form of photographs in old albums or hides behind everyday everyday activities, but an art book is a completely different matter. Photos and images, clippings from magazines and their own illustrations in it will be scattered on the pages in completely different versions. And they will always be there until the next bright notebook is over. Everything that is lost in our memory and slips away every day will be stored in an artbook in the form of a note, drawing or any other little thing glued to tape or with glue.
Ideas for creating a graphic album
Artbooks are completely different in terms of topics and materials used. If you decide to create your own art book, ideas can be completely different, and there are no hard and fast rules. This is a wonderful feature of artbooks - even a person who is completely unable to draw can make it. After all, you can paste photos or beautiful clippings from magazines and newspapers, even labels and menus from your favorite restaurants, into it.
As for the subject, there can be no restrictions at all. It may be a book about your life in which you can display the past, future and elusive present. An art book can even consist of a set of sketches that we do, chatting on the phone or listening to a tedious lecture at the university.
An album may reflect the happiest moments of a trip. Then it will be filled with tickets, sketches and, of course, vivid photographs.
Another option is to make your own artbook in the form of a wish book, in which all your dreams can be depicted. This is a kind of alternative to the wish board, which helps to visualize the most hidden and desired things.
One of the areas of art therapy, which has recently become very popular, is the creation of graphic albums for the purpose of introspection. During the creation of an art book, a person not only expresses his creative nature, but also increases his self-esteem, gives himself the installation to overcome difficulties.
Work on the artbook
To make your own graphic album, first of all, you should decide on its basis, which can be a diary, a bound book, an album, a notebook. In other words, everything your fantasy tells you.
As already noted, usually the pages of an artbook are united by a common theme - this can be a travel album, a personal diary, visualized desires, wedding fantasies and much more. But if there is no specific topic, then this is not a hindrance - you can make a prefabricated artbook. Ideas are completely different. The album may include sketches, sketches and phrases that made a special impression. In the process of creating such an art book, a person receives not only a lot of pleasure, but also splashes out his creative energy.
How to fill the album?
When you have already decided on the theme and contents of the album, it's time to tackle the most interesting - its filling. You can paste interesting clippings from magazines and just pictures, draw with pencil, felt-tip pens and paints, collect memorabilia, supplement everything with sketches and small notes. Very often, a collage technique is used to create an artbook. Let's consider in more detail how various artbooks are created.
Interesting artbooks: what is a collage?
Collage is understood as a work of art created by gluing materials and objects on a base that differ in texture and color. Initially, a collage is a combination of images that arise in the mind, and not just a set of beautiful pictures. The finished image can be painted with ink, watercolors and other materials.
Some tips for creating a beautiful artbook
Although it was noted that in the process of creating an artbook there are no rules, still some features are worth noting. This is especially true for those people who are far from art and for the first time picked up brushes and pencils in order to learn how to make artbooks. What is a beautiful graphic album and what to look for when creating it?
Rule one: a rich but unobtrusive background. Rich - meaning in one of its parts is not the same as in the other. Even if only half a ton or half a detail, but still different. An unobtrusive background is one that does not interrupt the main object.
The easiest way to create a background is to draw watercolors on a wet sheet of paper. To do this, take a dense sheet, spread it with a brush or sponge with clean water, and then paint with various colors. When splashed on water, the colors will blur into fancy spots.
If the background still turned out to be quite intrusive, you need to take the white paint, dilute it with water and apply it in several layers on the substrate, achieving the required degree of pallor. Then you will stand out the main object and get a beautiful artbook. What is a key object? This is an element that attracts attention. It is he who contains the main idea that the artbook reflects. It can be an image, text or figure. It is very important that any viewer immediately understands that this particular object is the key.
The easiest way to select an object is to find the image you like in the magazine or on the Internet, cut it out and paste it on the substrate. And empty seats can be painted over with paint.
Another rule of a good graphic album is that minor elements should not interrupt the key object, but be brighter than the background. It can be images, text, leaflets, pieces, shells, photographs. In general, everything that is worthy of your attention and relates to the theme of the album.
An art book is a flight of fantasy, a collection of important images and elements united by a common idea. Creating such an album, you can safely do everything you want: combine various materials and needlework techniques, splash out imagination in the form of intricate images and unexpected solutions, and experiment. And remember that living in the past is not worth it. Learn to turn pages, because life is full of falls and new ups. The main thing is how you feel about them.