Clearprint Cross Country Art Project

I'm not usually a joiner, but something about this simple collaborative project piqued my interest a few months ago.  Hmmm - maybe the lure of a free vellum book if you contribute...... The coordinator at Chartpak (the mfgr. of Clearprint) added me to their waiting list and a traveling journal arrived about 3 weeks ago.  Right before Artiscape. So, I had to postpone my contribution until the following weekend.  I'm really glad now it worked that way because it allowed me to use some of the acrylic paint stenciling techniques I learned from Carolyn Dube in one of my classes.  (If you ever get a chance to take a class with her, do it!  Fun, upbeat, positive and very empowering plus a whole new look at how to use stencils.) 

The collaborative art project is done in a Clearprint Vellum book. Vellum was a new experience for me.  I knew from the start that I wanted to take advantage of the transparency of the paper and create something two-sided.  There was some really beautiful art in this book - a bit intimidating for an amateur like me - but I'm happy with my result.  Be sure to go to the Clearprint site to view all the project books.

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My take on the vellum?  It is a neat material to work on.  I like the transparency of it and can think of other fun things it would be good for.  I would love to have a nice small journal of it - maybe 3" x 5" or 5" x 7".  But the 1000H vellum in this collaborative project is very lightweight and probably not best suited to wet media (but it did hold up under about 5 coats of acrylic!). The books come perfect-bound, so the binding doesn't weather the handling by the 20+ artists and so the pages are mostly loose now.  I do love the material the book has for it's covers - much sturdier weight of vellum and still transparent.  Would like to see that weight throughout the book with maybe, a spiral binding.

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