Above: The final page in the test book I made using Strathmore 500 Series Mixed Media paper. Click on the image to view an enlargement. Yes the book was turned on its side, the spine is at the top of the image.
Today's superstition was somewhat addressed in Superstition 14 (working across spreads) because I used an example in which I had turned the book 90 degress so that the fore edge was not the base of the image. Also Superstition 1 (an introduction to the superstitions series) showed an image which ran across the spread in a book that had been turned 90 degrees as well. But I decided that this superstition needed a posting all its own—You may turn your book any direction you want to turn it. (And you can work on the full spread or simply one page—whichever you prefer.)
Why might you want to turn your book 90 degrees? Well, sometimes, as on this day, you might only have one page left in your book and you might want to draw in landscape format (wider than it is tall) instead of portrait format (taller than it is wide). If I had not turned the book on this day I wouldn't have been able to draw the dog's face this large and get all of his head and enough of his paws onto the narrower portrait orientation. I already knew that I wanted to draw him with the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen, so I also knew that I wanted to work rather large.
Don't let a little thing like which way you turn your book keep you from having fun creating the image that you see in your mind.
And in an aside about paper, it was with a lot of mixed feelings that I left my first book made with Strathmore 500 Series Mixed Media Paper. As you know by now if you've read any of the other posts made while I was working in this journal I've really enjoyed working with the paper. For my thorough review of the paper please read "Great Paper News."
I have another book which I made with this paper, but I didn't select it for my next journal. I like changing up the papers with which I work. I'm currently testing another white paper for my everywhere journal. And after I finish that journal I'll be going on to a toned paper journal (white paper is wonderful, but I do miss working on toned paper). So for now it's good bye to this paper.
