Water Soluble Pencils

April 15, 2011 by 7 Comments

Life has been very busy recently in March.  I haven’t had much time to do much of anything.  Because I needed to PLAY a little bit as a break from work and play with something that didn’t take much time….

I have been playing with water soluble pencils.  I love, love, love these new tools.  So much pigment…such great colors.  I bought them because I was going to be taking some online journaling classes and thought I might want them for the classes, plus my curiosity was piqued about them.  I have used the water soluble crayons before, but these are a little different.

I have a 5.5″ x 8″ visual journal with 140 lb. watercolor paper.  I decided to do  color washes using the pencils on some of the pages as a warm up exercise of play.  On some of them I doodled in ink, on some I tested stencils.  Most likely none of these are finished, but will have more added to them over time.

The next one is a blind drawing done with charcoal, then it was wetted.  After that I tried various pens and water soluble pencils.

More new tools…a water soluble charcoal pencil and a water brush.  The brush has a barrel to hold water in it.  So when you use water soluble pencils, crayons or charcoal, you just squeeze a little bit of water down to the brush tip and voila! you can paint!

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I’m In To Pottery

December 16, 2010 by Leave a Comment

I dig pottery pieces.  The potters I know make very artistic work.  They play with colors and patterns and textures.  I usually buy small bowls that are experimental work and soap dishes.  The soap dishes are so much more though; they can be used for spoon rests too. Here are a couple I just bought.  These are by Tom Wintczak from Bee Tree Pottery in Indiana.

The back is pretty cool too.

And the back…

I love Tom’s work!

And for an update on potato chip scarves…here is a new one I just finished in Sensations Angel Hair yarn.  It is 22% wool, 50% acrylic, and 28% nylon.  It is soft and a bit fuzzy, fun and warm to wear.

Filed Under: Contemporary Art, creativity, new art Tagged With: , ,

Life!

December 2, 2010 by Leave a Comment

I haven’t blogged here since November 4th…how can this be?  I guess I’ve just been busy.

First I was out of town for several days vending at a quilt show in Columbia, MO.  I just want to give a great big thank you to the girls of the Boonslick Quilt guild….they did a great job…their show was awesome…and they were so helpful to the vendors.  And believe me I needed help.  Having never been to Columbia, I was lost as a goose trying to get around and find my hotel room.  The problem lay with the fact that I misread the map.  I was beginning to think I was going crazy.

Here’s my booth set up.

I was very pleased with my sales.  I had a wonderful Mexican meal and margarita on Saturday night with some of the vendors, made new friends, then drove half way home and stayed the night with my friend Vicki.  We had a wonderful visit together (hope it was for her too) and then I came home on Monday.  It was a great weekend.  It was just a very fulfilling weekend.  Maybe I need to get out more?

Then the race was on to get ready for Select Collections.  I still had plenty of sewing to do since I was making table runners and table napkins from hand printed cloth.  I also finished two new pieces of art.  Here’s one.  I need to photograph them both now that they are finished.  This is Fragments #5b.  That’s right, 5b.  And there’s a #5a and #5c, but that will have to wait.  The reason for the odd numbering is because all three are from the same piece of cloth and actually FIT together, although one would never have to purchase them that way.  They measure approximately 17″x 14″.

On the second day of Select Collections I had to leave to go home for the holiday celebrations with families.  We were gone til Monday.  On the actual Thanksgiving we helped out at our church and my husband had a long weekend off work.  The most I got done is some cleaning and laundry.  The following week (this week) I made a trip back to Evansville to do some shopping and pick up all of my work from Select Collections.  I am now settling in and doing some ART!!!  Yeh!  About. Time.

Of course this coming weekend is Christmas in Harmony.  Find me and other artisans at the lovely Granary on Granary Street.

Filed Under: Contemporary Art, creativity, new art, New Harmony Tagged With: , ,

New Product Time

October 31, 2010 by 2 Comments

I recently ordered some of Lesley Riley’s TAP Transfer Artist Paper.  I have been wanting to try this for some time.  It is wonderful and I love it.  It transfers beautifully.

Here is my first sample.  There will be more.  I used a little play on words…

This is a color transfer…I did not color it with pencils or anything.

I have some for sale…contact me if you are interested.  There are 5 sheets in the pack for $13, full instructions and a sheet of silicone release paper.

In other news, I have been cleaning up my workspace in the garage, cleaning out the fridge and trying to use up dyes before they get too old.  I dyed several yards of stuff and then discharged some designs on the black.  I found out there was lots of green in that black dye.  The big circle stamp is my new favorite thing to stamp with.

I discovered I could set the white balance on this camera according to the kind of light I am shooting in.  Holly Knott has a great tutorial on her blog about shooting your own work.  It is well worth reading, especially if you can’t take it to a photographer and need to photograph your own art.  Read it here.

I couldn’t resist ordering wool roving in my last order and have been playing at felting beads. Aren’t they cute?  Pretty easy and fun to make.

Tuesday is election day.  I will be working as a judge doing my civic duty and guarding the integrity of our elections.

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Filed Under: creativity, digital photography, new art, photography, postcards Tagged With: , ,

Flow #8

July 6, 2010 by 7 Comments

The series keeps on going…at least so far…

Machine free form stitching, hand blanket stitching, running stitch, paint, inks, Mykonos ceramic beads and seed beads

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Filed Under: collage, creativity, new art Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Series Work

June 7, 2010 by Leave a Comment

I have been working in a series of small fiber pieces.  My purpose is to take my paint rags and to explore on them in stitch with the theme of  “Flow”.  The very first one I made is on my sidebar.  Now I am working on the rest of them.  I discovered that, as I sit there waiting to begin on them and feeling as if I don’t know where to start….if I will just “start”, the ideas begin to come and flow.  Sort of like walking on water (not that I’ve ever done it!) or some other thing you’ve never done before, but by taking the first step as a “step of faith”, then it begins to happen.  But most usually “the flow”  doesn’t begin to happen until I start stitching.

Flow #2

Flow #3

Flow #4

Filed Under: artist's thoughts, collage, color, Contemporary Art, creativity, new art, paint

Ruth and Eve

May 28, 2010 by 3 Comments

I have two new dolls.  My friend Julia at JustJulia.com designs and creates these dolls.  I think they are wonderful, so I purchased one, actually traded for one.  I named this doll Ruth, like the Ruth from the bible.  But this Ruth is a bit jazzier; she wears silk and hand dyed cheesecloth is her head covering and shawl.  She also has some fancy jewels hanging from her arm.

Julia also gave me another doll, one I believe she said was a prototype doll, one made out of a paint rag.  This doll I call Eve.  She’s wearing hardly any clothing, but she does have a big leaf printed on her chest, much like the original Eve might have worn.   She has a big smile on her face too.

Filed Under: creativity, new art

Re-Working Art

May 18, 2010 by Leave a Comment

I love to work with layering, shadowed images and vague impressions.  I like to see what happens when I take a torn piece of fusible web and cover it with a lightly painted dryer sheet, then maybe stamp on it, or take a dryer sheet with a design already stamped on it and layer it over something.  The possibilities are endless.

I started this piece last year or the year before, can’t remember.  It just never came together for me for some reason.  I think I am a person (at least for right now) that is really in to creating patterns, mark making and other ideas that create a foundation, but sometimes I get lost from there.  That’s what happened here.  I was working intuitively and after deciding it needed more “lights”, I stamped over it with various stamps and white gesso and then got lost. I liked the colors, the stamped images, the hand stitching, but it still wasn’t coming together as a whole piece for me.

A couple of weeks ago, preparing for an art fair and contemplating making small pieces of economical art called ACEO’s, I pulled this piece out of the closet.  Armed with a photo mat with a window cut  ACEO size, I began to roam over it.  I began to see all kinds of cool things.  So I promptly cut it up.  Then to each little piece that needed more, I added it.  I think each little piece is now adorable and am very pleased with this experiment.  There are frames on the market now that will will hold 3 of this size together.

Each little piece has a lot to look at…maybe that’s why the larger one wasn’t working…

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Sold

May 2, 2010 by Leave a Comment

I also added some small beaded fringe on a couple of corners…a new signature idea.  The lady that bought this loved the bead fringe.

Three screens were used to make these designs.  One was made with blue glue and two were made with soy wax.  Screen designs are easy peasy to make.

Filed Under: collage, color, creativity, dye paint, dyeing, hand dyed silk scarves, new art, screenprinting Tagged With: , , ,

Back Home…

March 14, 2010 by Leave a Comment

It’s always busy when I get back home…there’s the usual going over the sales, credit slips, checks, banking, over-sales, where I need to order stuff to ship out because I ran out, etc.  And that’s not even including unloading the van…which can take several days just because I don’t get in a hurry!  Going out on the road is tiring work.

My poor neglected blog…well, on Friday I did do some dye painting/screening on the start of a new piece in the series “…But Words Will Never Hurt Me”. I don’t know if it goes beyond this one or not…perhaps. Tomorrow I will put the finishing touches on #2 that will be shipped out this week for the Fiber 2010 show in St. Charles, MO. I just need to put my label with all the artist info on the back, cut the pool noodle the right length for shipping and it will be ready to go.

This is the week I must finish boring taxes. I am working on getting all of my business information together…that is the biggest job. Then I just drop it off to the cpa. Oh but how I hate paperwork…

I’m toying around with the idea of creating some ACEO’s for art fairs. And they may not be fiber either. I have been perusing ebay to see what people are doing and selling…I’m also doing some buying. :=) There is some interesting talent on there. I find myself drawn to bright colors and funky drawings of objects and even some realism, although I still don’t want to do that myself. Wonder why I would like the bright playful colors?

Ok, I’ll share one picture of some drawings I’m playing with.

Well, I didn’t say it was good….I’m just playing around!  I added the “stitches” to see if I would like the interest they might add and explore the possibility of them becoming a trademark.

Filed Under: Art Exhibits, color, Contemporary Art, creativity, new art Tagged With: , ,
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