Sakura Blog Hop - A Tell-Tale Heart (Altered Book)

Welcome, I thought I would share an Edgar Allen Poe's A Tell-Tale Heart story with you. Here's the abridged version:

A man with a glass eye is murdered by someone claiming to be completely sane. The body parts are stored under the floor boards of his room. When the police come to investigate, they are invited to check the entire house and then entertained in the same room. The murder finally confesses to the crime because he/she is sure that the beating heart beneath the floor boards is heard by all.

I was selected to participate in the Art on Millionaire's Row Salon Art show at the Atladena Library earlier this month and given the opportunity to create an art book that would be sold to raise funds.

The best part of being selected was going to find the book to alter from the donated stacks beneath the building. A book from Poe collection practically jumped off the shelf at me. I knew at that moment that A Tell-Tale Heart was going to be my theme.

Once I got over my fear of the book police coming to get me for destroying something published over 100 years ago (I know, they still might show up at my door), I used crystal lacquer to glue all of the pages in the center of the book together. The story was at the end, leaving me plenty of space to hide a beating heart!

I started to use the crystal lacquer on each page, but quickly realized this would be A LOT of work. I then took binder clips to hold the pages together and generously applied the crystal lacquer to the edges. It dried overnight.

Although the book was not in the best of condition, I used the Zutter to rough up the binding even more. The chipboard Cogs from ScrapFx were painted with gold Luminere by Jacquard and then distressed. I used a gold leafing pen to go over the original wording on the cover - it was a weathered gray like in the design around the raven. Also the gold leafing was applied over the crystal lacquer holding the pages together. The buttons and ribbon worked great to secure the book when closed.

The red glimmer mist was applied towards the end, to give the illusion of blood.

Inside cover, a picture of Poe printed on photo paper and then painted with Metalic Acrylic paint from Jacquard and then sanded down.

I wanted an audio portion to the piece, so I purchased one of those cards you can record a message onto and then recorded a heart-beat. I hid the mechanism between several pages at the front of the book, so when it is opened to the title page, you hear the heart beat - escalating in volume and pace.

Another picture of Poe, splattered with blood. The Table of Contents was distressed.

Turning to the story, you discover that there is a heart on every other page and beneath the story is . . . the beating heart.

It took a while to cut out the, literal, heart of the book. I used an exact-o knife, taking out several pages at a time. I then applied a variety of colors of distressing ink to not only the cut-out portion, but also to the pages of the story. It created that cool heart pattern on every other page.

The heart was created using Soft Clay from ClayCraft. It is a soft, light weight durable air-dry clay. The cogs were applied before the clay dried. The computer hard-drive reader was a found object that seemed to fit perfectly with the illusion of the beating heart.

I had a lot of fun with this project. Please click on the link below to view my video showing the completed project.

A Tell-Tale Heart Video

Thanks for visiting!
Heather Morrow

P.S. Don't forget that you are blog hopping . . . next is Carole Lassake. If you missed anyone, or are completely lost - the entire blog hop list is below.

1) Sakura's Blog

2) Terri Sproul's Blog
3) Jennifer Van Pelt's Blog
4) Karen Myers' Blog
5) Chelsea Povall's Blog
6) Heather Morrow's Blog -- You are here
7) Carole Lasske's Blog -- Your next stop
8) Carol Burn's Blog

P.P.S. Check out our fun-filled Creative Souls Retreat happening this September in the beautiful San Bernardino Mountains.