This ‘N That…

What…my first post for March…I have been busy.  I would have posted last Monday but I was packing and getting ready to leave, and putting the final touches on a lecture and workshop.  I traveled to Greenwood, IN (outside Indianapolis) on Tuesday to visit my artist friend, Cynthia.  This is now a yearly trip.  Her quilt guild asked me to do a workshop with them and the program for their monthly meeting.  It was lots of work getting ready as I was preparing something new.

The workshop was on Dye Painting.  They did rubbings, stamping, monoprinting, gelatin printing and I had some screens made up for them to play with.  Here is Jo working on a stamped piece of cloth.

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Here is a rubbing made by Cindy…

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…a monoprint carefully planned and executed by Mary….

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…another well executed piece by Phyllis…

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…the gelatin after someone printed on it…believe it or not, there is no dye left on this to print…the gelatin has soaked it up or something…

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…and Sandy’s 1 yard size clean up cloth.  I thought it was an awesome piece and urged her to save it for some special idea.

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I think everyone said they had a good time and we didn’t make too big a mess.

On Thursday, Cynthia and I went to the Indiana Heritage Quilt show in Bloomington, IN to see vendors, friends and quilts.  That evening I gave a program on Journal Quilt Techniques for the guild, showing them some of the quirky things I do on small art pieces.  All in all, a fun and exhausting time…I drove home Friday morning after sleeping in.  Now…to get ready for whatever is next….

More Painting….

I painted some more pieces yesterday. Experiments…these are still wet in the pictures. They may look quite different after being washed. I hope not!

Painted with a sea sponge and salted with rock salt.

Three different monoprints in three different colors…chartreuse, turquoise, and black.

1st layer: chartreuse paint dabbed on with brush; 2nd layer: turquoise stamped with commercial stamp; 3rd layer: black paint stamped with potato masher

Sttiched resist….it may be a few days before the finished product is ready, but I will post it.

Brush cleaning cloth.

What’s this?? A snake??? No, it’s another stitched resist. This was painted with turquoise, fuchsia, and yellow. I can’t wait to see what all of these look like when finished.

Stuff I’m Working On….

I am working this week. I am preparing for a fabric dyeing class this weekend at the Rend Lake Visitor’s center. I have been studying and writing my handout and getting kits ready.

I have also been playing/working in my room. My new best friend is gesso. A friend of mine had given me several books of home dec samples. Being the little hoarding and can’t-waste-anything person that I am, I have found a use for some of these pieces. I usually work fairly small, so these do come in handy. (When, oh, when will I work larger?) I am taking the large florals and painting them with gesso, then painting over that with the Adirondack iridescent paints. I love the whitewashed feeling the gesso does to the fabric. The paint is not put on solid, but a bit randomly. You’ll see. I am using these pieces to frame other small pieces of art. I like the look. Now to find a way to mount them for hanging. I glued (PVA, acid free) the gessoed, painted home dec fabric to matboard, but have stopped there so far. These pieces are not stitched yet. The only problem I see so far, is that the lovely gessoed florals are mostly covered up, but I do like the “framing” look of it.

I am thinking “Fragments of a Life”. What do you think?

Again using scraps…home dec fabric, gesso, acrylics, stamping, dyed craft paper, torn paper from a photo, screening, painted dryer sheets, hand dyed fabric, calligraphy pen. This started with a georgous earthy hand dye I wish I could repeat.

I think I will be adding more to this one. I am thinking more background texture. The home dec fabric pieces have a lovely ragged edge on one side (shown here on the bottom), from cutting them out of the book. I would like to utitilize that.

I am looking forward to soon spending a few days dyeing, painting and screening with soy wax out in my patio…if this cold, rainy weather ever clears up!

Thursday Night Playtime

I have been doing some playing tonight. The stamps are made from Pentel erasers as well as the erasers that Dick Blick sells. Some of the stamps are EZ cut block and MasterCarve. You all should be surprised that I have a partially finished piece to show, because I sure am! After doing surface design, sometimes it takes me a long time to put a piece together. My brain is, like, satisfied to just create cloth. But my husband is gone for the evening and I have kept working. Also, this is small. I have lately been wanting to do some more journal pieces. I stamped white cloth with several layers and colors. Boy do I love the new Adirondack dabbers. Talk about convenience. Ya’ gotta try them. I think I will be getting more colors. The flowers, for now, are paper. I printed the photo on silk but the colors didn’t come out as vivid as the paper. This will give you an idea of where I’m going with this. Not sure about a name yet, but I am thinking garden something. The background definitely reminds me of a greenhouse or floral shop…or someone’s garden. I used pigment inks, acrylic paint (the dabbers), and colored pencils on cotton to create the background cloth. Ciao!