I have been doing some prints and mounting them on deep canvas, but haven’t had time to get the photos put up here on the blog. Here are a couple of my favorites. I do enjoy using construction fence patterns.
Spontaneous Screen Printing Class
July 10, 2012 by 7 Comments
Beth gets ready to print with a glue screen.
Beth’s freezer paper prints.
Laurie’s unique pumpkin prints
Mark tries adding color to his freezer paper prints.
I love how this one turned out.
Jan works on a piece of commercial cloth, adding more designs to it.
One of Jan’s paper designs.
This is another of Mark’s designs. It took him a while to paint this design on the screen, consequently some of the dye dried and when he printed it, it had a breakdown printing appearance to it. Of course, I love that.
Susan paints some of the open areas of her prints.
Some of Suzy’s work.
A pretty cool freezer paper screen made by another Beth in the class. I really like this screen design.
Sketching And Gouache
June 17, 2011 by Leave a Comment
I recently participated (somewhat) in an online journalling class with Roz Stendahl. It was sponsored by Strathmore. See Roz’ blog here. She encouraged me to sketch in this workshop, even though I’m not a big sketcher of real items. I’m more of a…doodler. I do appreciate seeing someone else’s work of sketching and the fact that Roz painted her sketches was interesting. But for me to do it…not so much.
I was out mowing the yard on Monday when I saw dried seed pods on our Golden Raintree trees. I knew I had to grab that twig with pods and sketch it. There was something so simple about it…and it was old, from last years pods, and dried out.
I did sketch it, then yesterday I decided to paint the page with gouache, which is a watercolor paint that Roz highly recommends. I purchased some specifically to try it out. I sort of like the process. I don’t know that this will make me become an avid sketcher, but I’m warming to it. Roz would be so proud. (And I have enough gouache to last me to my nineties. I only ordered 3 tubes, but the amount of paint this took is so minimal.)
Pods
I’m even thinking of adding some photo transfer to this page. The Golden Raintree trees are now in bloom, preparing to launch their thousands of new seed pods. I took photos yesterday.
Tuesday
May 24, 2011 by 9 Comments
Well, I guess Mondays are lining up to be my “domestic” day. After making Mounds balls, I also made biscuits for supper later in the afternoon yesterday. Did some laundry and cleaning up a bit too. My husband hates to see things laying around and me…well, if I can’t see it, I forget about it and there are some things I want to remember I have to work on or at least think about so I can make a decision! (I recently found my Indiana sales tax form somewhere it should not have been…out of sight, out of mind. Luckily, I still could meet the deadline.) My “studio”, aka, the shrinking 9’x 9′ extra bedroom, does not give me the space to leave things out where I can see them and think about them. I pretty much use the whole house!
The thread came yesterday, so today I will again start stitching on a piece I am working on for my show. I should be doing that now, but well, here I am. I wanted to post some of the deconstructed results from last week, and I now have the photos loaded onto the computer.
I used different sized screens and some of these are overprinted…and may still need some more overprinting. And they have not been washed yet, but you get the idea. I really really love the breakdown look of this kind of printing.
The reason this whole piece of cloth is not printed is because I am pondering using these as 4 separate prints for wall pieces. We’ll see. They might need more printing on them.
What I’ve Been Up To
May 23, 2011 by 8 Comments
Last week, I ran out of thread on a piece of art I was stitching on. Rather than take a whole day and drive an hour away to buy thread, I opted for an internet order instead. Of course! the company only had one spool of a color I needed, I found out later, and of course, I need more than one, so yes, I will be making that 1 hour trek in a couple of weeks, but I made a lunch and outing date with a friend, so driving an hour for thread won’t be all that I am doing that day. Oh, the down side of rural living…even if I do love it!
In the meantime, there is plenty for me to do while I wait for the thread….so I got started on making some prints on cloth. These will be deconstructed prints. First I had to create the screens. I smeared a few colors of dye paint onto the back of blank silk screens, then pushed objects that will create designs and texture into the paint. Then let dry for however long it takes. Purchased screens or homemade screens using framing wood pieces that lock together…it’s all good. I have learned something about making the homemade screens though. Do not use polyester sheers…they STRETCH! And you won’t like it. Use nylon material to avoid this. I am going to have to re-do some of my screens.
While I had the dye and the bubble wrap out, I decided to play. I do that a lot…try something new…see what happens. I laid my dry soda soaked cotton over the bubble wrap (to see how to soda soak cotton, see my tutorial on the sidebar), then laid a blank screen over it and pulled prints.
This deposits quite a bit of paint on the cloth, hence the following “monoprint”.
Since these two pieces use the same colors, they can be used together in something, but there is variation in the cloth.
I still need to finish one piece of cloth before I put my stuff away…maybe today!
But right now, I am making Mounds balls. ;=)
Need Help Please
May 13, 2011 by 13 Comments
I went to the SAQA website today to post a plea on my Visioning page and while I’m there I am currently deleting 478 emails in my inbox. Do you know how long that takes doing 20 at a time? It’s taking a while. So I decided while I’m doing that I will post a blog post here and ask for YOUR help too!
I have my first solo show in October this year. I have a series of small (5″ x 7″-ish) works I will be mounting on deep 12″ x 12″ canvases. I will be painting the canvases before I mount the fiber work. I personally did not wish to paint the canvases a solid, flat color, but rather wanted to do swipes of color that had movement, feeling that this was more in line with the fiber work. But now my question is: what are others going to like? I really want to sell at this show and am now wondering which method will make the work more sell-able. Here is how the canvas looks at this point. Sort of wispy, worn, like the side of an old barn. But is this what people will want? Eeek! I really need help with this. And I know people can only give me their opinion and in the end, I still have to make the choice. But I still want to hear from you. And I will ponder any suggestions anyone has to make too.
And if you need a little distance….
Catching Up
February 23, 2011 by 10 Comments
On Friday, February 11th, after 3 attempts to go, I finally made it to Form, Not Function at the Carnegie in New Albany, IN. A friend and I first visited Jane Dunnewold’s wonderful exhibit, Etudes: A Daily Practice on display in Louisville, KY at the Hite Art Institute. We enjoyed that very much, then went to New Albany to find the Mexican restaurant, which had moved, before we went to Form Not Function. I love Jane’s work. It was an awesome day and I really should do that more often. It just reminded me that I don’t get out enough!
Back to life at home….my husband and I went out to eat at an awesome Mexican restaurant the next night in Marion. Can you tell I like Mexican? Here’s what I got…Don Sol’s Fajitas.
The salsa was excellent and there was enough food to take home for lunch on Sunday! The restaurant is Don Sol’s in Marion, IL. If you are in the area try it!
Last week I painted dryer sheets.
This week I ironed them.
This week I painted sky fabrics.
And dyed all of these things.
Cotton and rayon circular scarves, jumbo cotton rick rack and a bunch of onesies. Walmart now sells organic cotton onesies made by Faded Glory. They are so nice and soft.
Well, that’s my week so far. I have more to do before the Bloomington, IN quilt show next week.
