Before last weekend's total collage immersion, I was working slowly and steadily on two different round robin books.

Carroll's book is a spiral-bound weekly planner from 1976.

The original owner kept incredibly detailed notes about her life, and the pages are covered in her handwriting.

On the page below, she had written an appointment with Dr. Southall, then circled it and written "no!" next to it.  I adapted my page around that.

I didn't do much to this next page other than glue down and old library pocket and slip an ATC inside. I'm the fourth person to work in this book.  Gina is the last stop before it goes back home to Carroll.  I'm pretty sure we've all agreed to give the books another go around the circle since we all have plenty of blank pages and spaces left for additions.

 

The book is a collaborative effort, where we are encouraged to add to each other's pages.  The page below came to me with the yellow paint.  I added the architectural image transfer.  It's nothing close to a "finished" page.  It will be fun to see what others add.

This rather busy two-page spread is all me.  If these were postcards I'd consider them done and mail them off, but one of my talented friends might see a way to take this to a whole new level.

 Talk about minimalist...

This page came to me with the two scraps of painted paper.  I added the big letters. (and cracked myself up.)

OH, and speaking of cracking myself up...

The voice balloon says "I don't know if you're my role model, per se, but I have long wanted to be a member of the pants-wearing elite."

 Carroll drew this marvelous bunny, and left an inviting smear of blue on the opposite page.  All I did was add the invitation to come out an play.

Another minimal contribution from me - all I added was the voice balloon.  (many thanks to Max for sacrificing some old comic books.)

"Why'd you bring me to this boring, stinky old swamp?"

Then there's this hot mess.  There was a some purple and white on the pages when I started, and it seems everything I added made it worse.  The one thing I like about this spread is that the dark squiggly lines are done on a transparency that has been taped into the book as a separate page.  (see the tiny polka dots on the right side of the spine?  it's a wash-tape hinge.)  this way the transparency flips back and forth and you can incorporate the lines into either page.

Finally, I got to use four different elements that have been hanging around my collage folder for ages.

At the same time I was working on Carroll's book, I was also working on Amy's book for my other round robin.  The disadvantage of working in books is that you have to leave them open to dry so you can't start working on another page right away.  It was nice to have two books going at once so that I could work in one while the other was drying.  I didn't do as much in Amy's book because it's smaller and fuller and I wanted to make sure there were plenty of pages for the remaining two artists to work on.

My typical silliness was in high-gear for these pages.

Peggy left a comment recently asking for more info regarding altered books, because she's considering doing a round robin of her own.

I'll be back soon with some more thoughts, links and pictures.