Torn

      During my process of creating things i used a lot of pages ripped out of this book. At first the idea of ripping up a book upset me as i am destroying the story and then it would be unusable again, even though i knew the story and had the book sitting on my shelf collecting dust. It felt wrong and like i was wasting it, preventing others from reading it. To get over this i decided to completely rip up the book. Destroying it on impulse was a good outlet and making a mess can be therapeutic. Out of anger and despair a big daydreamer could destroy a book to prevent them from using it as an escape, forcing them self to deal with reality.  The same method to when people turn their phones off to stop being distracted by social media and other things. I also like the idea of someone destroying the book once they finished it due to all the emotions that it made them feel when reading the story.
    I used a craft knife to just slice at the front page at random to create a chaotic mess. I then painted the first few chapters black and stuck them all together to prevent anyone from beginn ign to read the book, without the begining no one can become invested in the story. The colour black also represents manipulation and mystery, used to draw people's curiosity in therefore is evil. It also shows grief as once the story is over the reader loses the characters they have met and became invested in, therefore grief their loss as they miss them.

      Throughout the book i ripped and screwed up pages, big chunks are completely ripped out whilst others only missing some parts of the pages. This makes it completely impossible to read the book as too much is destroyed. I painted viciously over some pages so it is hard to read the gtext. I used black and red as it shows suffering. The colours arent mixed together well either, making it appear dirty and not thought through. On the back cover, i used my fingers to print red and black paint that eventually met and crossed over. I thought this looked quite haunting like seeing a bloody handprint. The ripples in the fingerprints almost make it look like delicate water which contrats the actual colours and image. Therefore showing the manipulation that the book began with, like a siren. Also each fingerprint slightly looks like s soul in hell suffering in masses from a far. I also used the colour red as it links to the hair colour of the girl on front, but her pale skin makes her look delicate but the cut up front page takes that away as she looks torn and broken.
   I wouldn't know how to improve this as this entire piece was made on impulse and that cannot be recreated. I would like to have had more time to do more things to the book like on the pages in between. I wanted to do some small illustrations with black ink that covered the text and was hidden throughout the book so people had to be careful to find them. Additionally, i could create a small pile of ripped up books instead of neatly stacked and see how strict book lovers react as it is heartbreaking seeing them ruined like that.