Tuesday, August 11, 2009

How Does A Flower Grow? Almost A Book.....

C&T Publishing has a cool group called the "Creative Troupe". Through a bit of the luck of the Irish (or something else) I am a recent addition. The latest "call out" (when you say if you want to participate in that particular round) was to use some of their products in whatever way you wanted. These finished pieces are given to C&T's sales reps to show to art supply stores in the hopes of adding sales of their prducts. I agreed to play with some Lutradur (these exercises will be in tomorrow's post) and one of the small square blank books that C&T sells. I was having a a difficult time with this project for some reason. I had started on a theme and then half way through had realized that this was not the way I had wanted to do the book! I was frustrated and irritable about it. Oh well ! I decided that I had to press on & fulfill my promise to send this in. Yesterday, a day when the planets all seemed a bit misaligned for me anyway (shall I simply blame it on the Persides meteor showers?!) my brush water bin tipped over and washed all over the book! Before I could react fast enough I had damaged the pages in the back of the book. They all stuck together from the gesso that I had primed the pages with and when I tried to open the pages they tore apart and left very rough patches. I had the finished pages wrapped in plastic wrap to protect them from my sometimes over enthusiastic painting!
I contacted Lisa at C&T to tell her that I would not be able to send back the book (mea culpa) - and offered to return it with the other things they had sent to me. Thankfully Lisa said that I could get an extension and that she would be happy to send me another book if I wanted to continue with the project. YEAH! Now I can do the project the way I now envision it....and I got an extension to boot. Thank you Lisa!

I am excited to be able to be connected to C&T Publishing in this very small way. They are a Washington company for one thing - and I like that - and they also have the best craft & quilting books & fun supplies. I have always respected the company quite a bit, and, over the years I have purchased a lot of C&T books! Being a part of this "Creative Troupe" will garner me a decent discount on some books I've been eyeing and maybe some of my work will get just s tiny bit of exposure. It's all good - or will be at least. These are the few pages that I had done using the growth cycle of a flower as a theme. The next book will be similar but done much differently.
I did enjoy playing with the Lutradur - as I generally do. I had fun using it to make art cards. I am hoping that C&T will also like them though. Right now that's what I need to do - go and finish putting them together so that I can get at least one thing in the mail on time to them!
The page above got some water damage too - but it is not as obvious but
in the photo below you can see the damage that the water did.......
I am ready for the clean new pages and a chance to have a re-do!

3 comments:

Lisa Fulmer said...

oh, it's so beautiful and so sad! I'm sorry that all your work was ruined...maybe you can cut the book apart and still crop and cut out a few small painted sections to collage with, or make ATC's with? Thanks for being willing to have another go, your work is lovely!!

By the way, C&T is based in Northern California, we sell worldwide though.

imquilternity said...

Do I dare mention that "famous" word again without getting laughed at? :)

Sandy said...

Nice work. I reviewed books for C&T for years and always enjoyed working with them. By the way, today I spilled my tea next to the sewing machine--must be something in our air.

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