Sea monsters, dronts and altered oceans

This is the newly thrifted book that I am working in as my Art Journal:

The Ocean Art Journal altered book Art Journal by iHanna (Copyright H. Andersson)


I love these old books with thick sturdy pages, but I’m having a hard time finding new ones at the thrift shop. Where are they all hiding when I need them? I think the thrift shops might discard them because nobody buys them… but me. This one has the pretties cover so far, a keeper for sure. It is about the ocean and has some very cool illustrations that I like.

Look at his guy, spotted in the circle pages:

Cute little creature in altered book Art Journal by iHanna (Copyright H. Andersson)
Little creature masked/saved on the page.

This little creature, isn’t he cute?! You can’t even see it here but he lives in a bubble this wee illustration and it has a rather nice (round) shape to it fitting my portion control theme very well.

If you’re interested in altered books check out the post where I alter a book called The world we live in and the Darwin book altered book cover with lots of roses.

Here are two very cute illustrations from inside my altered book:

Illustrations from the book The Ocean (Havet)
Illustrations from the book.

I think this is a beautiful illustration. It is an ancient octopus coin from Greece – it looks like something that could be in a painting by Leah Piken Kolidas, don’t you agree?

Dront illustrations from the book The Ocean (Havet)

What is it about me and the dront? He keeps coming back to me (I did glue one into my diary last year).

This blog is still active although this is an older blog post with comments closed. Please subscribe to iHanna’s Newsletter to be notified of future swaps, shop updates and digital freebies. Also note that you can subscribe to blog posts via email (not the same as the Newsletter) or via an RSS-reader like Feedly. Consider how you want to keep reading this blog and staying connected with me. Thanks for visiting, find new blog posts here and feel to leave me a comment there if you like what you see. Happy creating. xo /iHanna


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8 Responses

  1. Wow, Hanna! I love your altering. It’s been a while since I’ve altered a book. Yours are great. Thank you so much for posting the issue with my comments field on my blog. I’ll get this fixed this weekend and will let you know. I can’t wait to explore your blog further.
    Amy aka AnLiNa

  2. Hanna, I am definitely going to make time and look through all the journalling links you have put here. Your pages really excite me, so much that I want to try it myself. Have I got time?? Maybe I should make time.

  3. Karen!
    I don’t think you have the time to waist not starting – art journaling is the so much fun and altering a book makes it a cheap adventure! :-) I hope you try it – this weekend perhaps!?

  4. Wow this is a nice find Hanna ! I so love anything ocean myself. Those illustrations will make for great pages, like always from you.

    The Dront ? I dront know. (Hee, hee !) Maybe he is the large, clumsy part of the inner you (don’t worry though, because I think we all have a little dront inside us !) that wants to become a sleek, graceful sparrow and fly away ? He’s fun to have around anyway, I think, even if he is flightless and a bit accident prone !
    Happy Creating !

  5. I love altered books. I have a book I brought just for this purpose and haven’t done a thing. Something I have to do. Just looking at this book and the other two posts you linked to, inspires me.

  6. I used to work at Goodwill years ago…and it always killed me that they threw away old books! I was always thinking “Someone could USE those wonderful old books! How can you just throw them away??”

    I find that old books are easier to find at garage sales. And they’re usually cheaper too (I found some once for $.25 or $.50 each)

  7. Hi, these are beautiful! How did you get that effect on the book at the top? I’d love to try that. Thanks.