Seamless Skin

I'm a convert...

I'm good, I'm very good!  Peter has been on vacation for most of December.  It is wonderful to see him so relaxed and not carrying around work all the time, even though work does make life sweet most days.  

We've been enjoying coffee together in the mornings, and grandkids, watching tv, and listening to music.  I'm actually looking forward to him being able to retire if the "creek don't rise".  

The other thing I've been doing is reading like a mad woman! Thanks to the Kindle Fire Peter gifted me.  Some months ago I downloaded Kindle for the PC...it was okay and I like reading between surfing, but still was somewhat lukewarm on getting a reader, etc.  The best thing I enjoy is the back lighting which doesn't require lamp light for reading in the dark.  The 2nd best thing I enjoy is not buying a hard copy book of  books that will not get a 2nd read from me...there are some books that are real treasures to me, but there are some that once I've closed the book, it is over!  Not all reference books require physical space, even if they are art related.  This morning I downloaded Digital Art Wonderland and I just finished reading a book on African American Rootwork and Sacred Symbols of the Dogon.  Although informative, (Sacred Symbols was not quite what I expected), I was reading them to inform some visual ideas I had...somethings struck, most didn't right now...but 1. I didn't pay full price and 2. neither book will occupy space in what is already very limited space and 3.  multiple titles are portable.  So I'm a convert to book readers.

Its been about 2 weeks since I've been in the studio.  I did bring a study piece home to work out some hand embroidery on the "boats".  It boiled down to "yeap, the thread work and colour choices make the boats pop even more which translates to 'gonna take me more time to finish'.  

I'm considering trapunto, which I've never attempted, to make the boats stand out more.  The embroidery will only be through the top layer.  The blue section will be quilted by machine. Each boat is around 3 inces across...the actual top has about 150 boats.  This is what I'll be working on when I stay home from the studio (i.e. too damn cold).  

No further revelations have come to me about this piece in addition to it being my response to Troy Davis' execution.  

Deciding

between this  or this  .

Giving myself 2 days to look at them and then will decide.

I think I know who she will become...

I started this sketch by looking at a photo, but as I continue to flesh her out, she is taking on her own life and although I thought this was just a sketch practice, it came to me today while she was peaking at me through the white cloth drying on the clothes line, that she is to go into a quilt I roughly scribbled last year.  A quilt design I did after perusing through a book of Romare Bearden's work.  We shall see said the blind man...we shall see....

And this is a shout out of thanks to the impromptu artist-visitor, Tommy, who popped into my studio and took the time to share what I consider in-depth pointers to give her more dimension.

Okay, let's have some fun...

This will be a communal creation.  A collage I started yesterday while visiting a friend.  What I do well is creating backgrounds and I gravitated to the background cloth and I could have added some stitching and metal embellishments and some writing or lettering and I would have been satisfied...But getting satisfaction was not the way to go...pushing myself was the cause for the day.  We did a lot of talking which is why I didn't get any further than this... My first suggestion is to add color on the white geometric shapes surrounding her face.  Gimme some suggestions on where to go next.  As I make changes I'll post the updates.

My friend gave me the coolest gifts yesterday!  When I showed them to my grandsons, the oldest one, age 5 said "cool" and the youngest one, age 3 said "ewwww" and backed way back.  Look for a post over the weekend to find out what they are! 

 

What can I say...I'm just an elliptical kinda woman...

It all started yesterday...I was trying to get the idea out of my head onto a piece of cloth that I was trying to salvage and wondered what would happen if  I wrote with school glue directly on the fabric as the resist and then after it dried, spread a layer of jacquard discharge paste over it.  So today I scurry in to apply the jdp and this is what happened...

before

 after
Discharge paste doesn't discharge metallic fabric markers...a tidbit of info that means nothing at the moment but seems like it could come in handy down the line.

More layers are forthcoming, but I'll not try this again as the dp just bullied the glue and the glue dried overnight.  In the past I applied the glue directly to a silk screen AND for the time involved, because it takes a long while for the blue school glue to dry, (typically a day), I am better off using soy wax which dries immediately.  

And these...(ellipis are my favorite grammatical mark...signifying the long trains of fluid but focused for me thoughts that I edit out to keep readers from suffering through the dips and peaks in my mind.  I've considered trying to refrain from using them as they are in just about every post I write, but at this point, it feels more like my trademark).

are in the washing machine along with a few other pieces.  The one on the bottom is smaller than a fat quarter and I used my new favorite tool (toilet paper insert) as the stamp.  

Oh, oh...another conclusion I reached yesterday...for batching dye painted fabrics, I prefer steaming the fabric versus laying it out in the sun, has less loss of colour/dye.  I've been tracking this for the last 3 months.  BUT, the steaming creates a strong odor when it is immediately unwrapped and rinsed but dissipates very quickly under running water.  So I now put on a mask for gasses when rinsing out.

 

Highly Prized Cups

Patience.  Is this the number #1 skill required for learning to draw?

I filled in the first drawing with colour and am still sketching cup #2 which was a gift from my BFF (I read the other day that this was voted in the top 10 phrases that needed to retire but since I've never used it I wanted to get in on it before it was gone to see how it felt...I'm underwhelmed by BFF).  

Back to the cup.  Kelly, who I love and adore, made this cup.  She is a creative but I'll always think of her as a potter since that is what she was doing and teaching when we meet 10 years ago.  I love drinking tea from this cup.  She dug the clay up herself!  It was a bit challenging to draw.  At the time I was really tired and the kitchen table was a mess and it was late and and and...but here it is.

 

Here is the first one with colour added:

 

Collage Preoccupation

I dunno, but maybe its all this time inside that is making me preoccupied with collaging.  I'm back to working on the kitchen table with the family having to eat around me and me being territorial about them needing to make room for my supplies.   I love when Carter goes to get his crayons and his Handy Mandy colouring book and sits with me for all of 5 minutes (age multiplied by attention span equals 5 minutes, but he is great at putting up his supplies before moving on, and he actually gets quite a bit done in those 5 minutes all the while talking talking talking.  I wish I could do that).

The Strathmore workshop is only a month long and the journal is 44 pages, I'm trying to pace myself over time.  I don't want 44 pages reflecting the first week in January...I'm trying to think in terms of story and narrative.  Here are the beginnings of 3 more pages:

The last one is a picture of me and my hand as they appeared 20+ years ago.  I was in a poetic performance with Voices in the Wind, a local group of women poets that I belonged to when this photo was taken by Keith Williams, a now retired photo-journalist who has helped Ade, my youngest, hone his picture-taking skills.  But have you noticed that 4 out of 5 images display disembodied body parts?  Okay, okay, I will not go all psycho-analytical about it...I'm just noticing, thats all. 

Peace,

So, What Do You Do?

Have you ever gone back and randomly read your old blog post?  I did. The majorest (yeah I know its not a word) difference is I no longer share as much of my day to day thinking and doings and, also, I almost never discuss my family and friends unless we merge in some way on the art making trip.   I don't know from reading my blog that you would know I've been partnered to the same fine man for 25 years, that I have 3 grown ass adult children and 3 intelligent grand-children, or that I worked as a social worker for 21 years...you know, all that social-demographic identifiers that people use for introductions and getting to know one another.  Whenever I found myself at a social gathering of strangers and was asked the question, "so what do you do?", my standard response was "in relation to what?".  I believe that a better intro would be to ask someone what they think about something you care deeply about.  For example, "what do you think about mountain top removal?".  Even if I don't have a clue, I can say in honesty that I don't know enough about the issue and then here we have a teachable/learnable moment.  I tend to remember people who have taught me something more than by what profession they hold.  Before I got around to finding out what you did for a living, I would know how you spend your precious time in tending to the heart and soul of you...if that happens to coincide with what you do for a living, then I know its going to be a great conversation because you'd be one of the very fortunate employed people who happen to spend the majority of their time engaged in their passion.    I'd like to know first, what you dream about, what gifts are you holding on to until the "perfect" time comes for you to use them before I know about your job and what zip code you live in.   

I had no clue that the above was even on my mind until I started typing.  What I came here to write about was my participation in 2 online visual journal projects.  One is sponsored by Strathmore Journals and the other is The Sketchbook Challenge working alongside 16 groovy (I love it when I can use that word) artists.

Although both are about visual journaling, they are two different pieces of fruit in the same bowl.  Here are the 2 pages I started for the Strathmore workshop taught by Pam Carriker.

I plan to add more colour when I can get out to get my watercolours.  (Woke up yesterday with a soar sore throat and upper chest inflammation, on another antibiotic and back to staying in).  Pam's workshop is about recycling your own art work for journaling.  The woman's face I sketched some years ago and the red paper came out of a LAFTA workshop by Debbie Levine on making Paste Papers.

This is my 2nd one in process. This is all paper but the border was a remnant from Penny Sisto's  tepee that she replaced.  It had been painted and what not, but the actual fabric disappeared into thin air some years ago and all I have is the image I had scanned. 

The Sketchbook Challenge is assigned a monthly theme for participants to sketch as often as they wish for the entire month on the theme.  January's is HIGHLY PRIZED.  I spent a day thinking (really over thinking it) until I realized  I don't have to go all esoteric on the subject and just sketch something I place some value on.  When that light bulb came on I went to the kitchen cabinet and gathered my 4 favorite cups for drinking coffee, tea, and hot cocoa.  Here is the first one that came from Korea in a Ya-Ya exchange with a female solider close to 9 or 10 years ago.  I don't remember her name or her Ya-ya name but I adore the tea cup with the lid.

Here is my sketch...

My goal was to focus on lines.  Ade thought I should do the shadow so I added it for the 2nd sketch.  I bet you'd like to see the actual cup, uh?  I'm going to do all the 4 cups and then I'll get photos of the real cups up later.

Peace,

I smoked and inhaled a long-arm machine and now I'm hooked!

Autumn for me is marked by time with Penny Sisto...a retreat, a revitalization, a re-centering in the art making as healing, yes.  The day was shared with Barbara, a watercolorist and dollmaker, and Gloria, a hand quilter and appliquer.  

Me on the long-arm and Penny looking intently

This time it was all about the long arm.  My first real chunk of time using one other than a five minute demo years ago at a quilt show.  Penny was aware of the Crowbonics series, thus she had us select from a variety of Crows she loosely had sketched in order for us to use to construct our birds in cloth.  I selected these Crows because they appeared to be praying to me and my next Crowbonics quilt is called The Hymnal.  

Deborah, my sister, not knowing about the next quilt, said the Praying Crows reminded her of Matthew 18: 19-20.

The Crows are fabric snippets which have been placed on wonder under, cut out, then sewed on a background using the long arm.  I don't know if a long arm is in my future but I'm now more motivated to use one to complete at least one quilt.  

We were all witnesses to the corruption of Gloria...who prior to this day, was a NO-RAW edges appliquer and hand quilter.

And here is Barbara, the dollmaker, at the long arm.

Penny currently has a joint show with Ann Lawson Adamek at the Huff Gallery at Spalding University. Penny described her work in this show as the most biographical series she has ever completed. The quilts center on the the myths and legends that abounded on the Orkney Islands where she was born.  

Learning Curves, Fall, Week 1

Friday:  

Digital Expressions by Susan Tuttle is my assignment for today.  I almost forgot about doing my Learning Curves this morning.  I woke up filled with the joy of art date yesterday (which I will write about in a few days when I can come down off the high of it).  

I just stopped at page 19 right before getting into the projects which I don't have time to begin as I have 2 appointments today that require my energies and focus.  

Reading and working through 3 digital art books at the same time is layering the knowledge which so far is helping me to retain better.  I was a little apprehensive at first, thinking I should go through them in successive order.

The weekends will be snatches of time to review what I've already covered and to get a small jump toward next week's schedule.

Wednesday:

Digital Designs by Gloria Hansen filled the morning.  A lot of terminology to best understand files and input/output of images.  Very generally, I knew the info at a surface level, but know that it is the type of information I will need to reference whenever I actually have the need to employ the knowledge.

Will review ch. 1-4 over the weekend and start the next few chapters and pick back up with a review beginning with ch. 5 on Wed.

The afternoon I started Secrets of Digital Quilting by Lura Schwarz Smith and Kerby Smith read to page 21.  The strongest imprint on me so far is knowing the difference between jpeg, raw, and tiff files...the ppi/dpi is still fuzzy but if I can hang on to dpi being output (printed) and ppi being what is visible on the screen then maybe the numerical understanding will become clearer later on.

Tuesday:

I continued on dyeing and mixed  red, black and black cherry into print paste and used it to over dye 2 pieces.  I really had no rhyme or reason other than the delight in playing with colour today.  With results like these I had to force myself out of the studio today: (they both are still damp)

I did not get into Image Transfer today (Learning Curve Curriculum).  I need to order Transfer Art Paper (Leslie Riley's product) and Lazertran for cotton and dark fabrics which will have to wait.  

Monday:

For the last few weeks I've been working with Intense Blue, Chocolate Brown, and Aqua Marine...I know by now the potency of the dye stock is on its last leg but I just hate throwing it out until I'm absolutely sure its a total bust.  Its has stayed in the fridge in attempts to keep it as fresh for as long as possible, but today I think I've reached my personal exhaustion point with the colours and I'm ready to move on into quilt design/construction.

Before I left the studio today, I put some time into mark making (one of the exercises found in Finding Your Own Visual Language).  These fast and loose sketches were made using a sea shell dipped in ink.

2 page spread; the right side was the first one...lines and letters; the left side is pears and a banana still life..attempting perspective;

attempt at narrative; 

last one was an angel

At some point I might return to these pages and add some colour but for not the objective holds of just fast and loose line drawing with a sea shell.  

Talking myself through the dark...

Yesterday I set up a test for the 3rd quilt for Crowbonics because the internal eyes and hands were working on it in spite of me wanting to do something else externally.  The 2nd-2nd quilt (second attempt on the second quilt) is not close to being finished but that didn't seem to matter to my internal eyes and hands.  Not having the energy to protest or object, this is what I started:

 torn papers layered under a sheer after medium applied but not yet dried

It is a small sample...about 10"x17".   I left it to dry yesterday and tomorrow I'll soak it in a bucket of water and scrap off the pieces of paper that didn't adher to the fabric.  The result will be a fractured image.  I applied more medium and more pressure on the faces.  I want less fracturing on the faces. If it works, I'll repeat with a larger sheer that will be a part of the actual quilt.

I also worked with redeeming a failed sheer lamination by cutting out the pieces I liked and then sewing them together.  I also wrote over the laminated sheer with a fabric marker as I'm thinking about what it would look like if the same images are repeated on all 3 visible layers: the paper, the sheer and the cotton fabric underneath.  I know, I know, I'm rattling on and talking to myself and not considering how tedious it is for a visitor to my blog to make sense of what I'm talking about...but a part of what I do here is like talking myself through the dark...

 

Taming Listlessness

While I'm typing this, Ade and Peter are intensely discussing NBA players and teams...they are always on opposite sides of the argument when it comes to sports, each one talking rapidly and overlapping speech...some father-son bonding ritual that gives me a headache.  In earlier days this would take place on some nearby street corner or neighborhood pub or some garage...but at the kitchen table over coffee and cereal seems invasive to my head.  I'm recalling a lecture given by bell hooks to architecture students (i crashed the lecture) that theorized to what extent outdoor and indoor spaces where claimed by gender. 

I woke up very early and sat on the balcony surrounded by Peter's tomato jungle and watched a teeny tiny spider bounce up and down, little by little, off of a vine, but I'm feeling listless.  To settle myself I printied on the fabrics that were soaked in the Bubblejet and Golden Digital Grounds that I mentioned previously...as I sip gulp my coffee I"ll upload the comparisons...hold on.

Visually, the difference is negligible .  The Digital Ground image is a little sharper and it makes the paper feel and behave more like art paper instead of cloth, stiffer but breathable, unlike using a gel medium.  Between the 2, my perference is the cloth with the digital grounds for the feel of it.  These are on cotton.

Last summer, sister blogger Marie, shared her results. (Click on her name to see.)

Daddy's service and beautiful and a sweet but short family gathering.  I loved two of the stories shared by one of his CB buddies, a Rev. Woods, who has lived in Michigan for the last eleven years and just so happened to be in Louisville for a family reunion.  He shared how my father, some decades ago, got him started with his CB passion and how much he loved talking to my father, Groundhog, via the radio.  The other older gentleman, told a railroad story and its what he left out that made the story even funnier for those who knew him.

I dreamt about him last night...he was dressed in the suit we buried him in but was in front of the casket carrying it with the 6 pallbearers.  He was walking down Broadway and when he passed 26th street he turned into this huge rugged field of gold and green patches of grass.  It was midday and my father was taking firm steps and said "people need to understand that patience is needed in times like these".  There was a huge, huge crowd waiting for him and cleared a path for him to enter a white building that sat back and off to the side in the field.  I arrived in a limo but had gotten off of work and into the crowd and was hoping that no one would recognize me.  I fell in step behind the casket after my father arrived.  I remember having the feeling that I wanted to blend in with the crowd but I wasn't a part of the crowd. 

When I awoke I thought, its just like Daddy to find something to do to keep him busy. :) 

The hugs and prayers are appreciated very much. 

Living and learning som'more

This is paper artist Debbie Shannon demo'ing for a small group made up of LAFTA (Louisville Area Fiber and Textile Association) members on how to cover book board with paste papers.  I met Debbie a few years ago at Mary Anderson Center for the Arts while renting out studio space.  She was upstairs in the larger loft making marbled paper...just beautiful stuff!!!!  In talking, we discovered that we were both members of LAFTA.  I was still a newbie at the time.

Being a member affords the opportunity to take monthly workshops from other members for free.  They are held in the fiber studio at the University of Louisville.  Yesterday, Debbie taught Paste Paper.  I loved it! But oh, am I saying to myself "no, you cannot take on another interest!!! you'll be inundated with more stuff!!!".  I already have a hard time discarding my garbage...onion skins-I can use these for dyeing; cereal boxes-painting surface, book cover, box making; thick colourful plastic packaging-these can go into an altered quilt...and yall know what I'm talking about...repurposing and recycling can be a massive undertaking and in this heavily consumer society it is endless!!!!!!!!!!

With that said, I do have some extra supplies that I plan to play with this morning once I get to the studio...the paste must be used before it goes bad and four hours was just not enough time to explore this fun release of art making energy...thats the story that I'm running with today!

 
3 samples of paste paper I made.  

Listening and Learning...

The sheer lamination was not wide enough to become the 2nd panel in the Crowbonics series.  The three panels will be the same size; 40 inches in length and 18 inches in width.  Being that it was not wide enough, I cut this sheer in 3 sections and decided to use these pieces to further experiment with what lamination can/cannot do.  Hand stitching is a natural compliment but lamination is not forgiving at all with un-stitching!  The pinholes left behind can become a design element...I'm considering  placing copper brads, eyelets, chicago screws, or gold leaf lamination (or some combination) in the area where the pinholes remain...but machine stitching is next...ummm, but maybe not...maybe I'll insert the metal pieces and then machine stitch (carefully of course).  I'll put them up on the wall and talk with them for a day or two before I decide...similiar to George Washington Carver, I'll listen for divine instruction ;)

exhibit a

exhibit b 

exhibit c

The backgrounds remind me of the building where my studio is located.  It was a former meat processing and packing plant and the integrity of the building has been maintained...lots of exposed metal shafts, pipes, and bricks. 

 

Crowbonics 2

Lucky for me, my washing machine went out and yesterday I went to my parent's house to do a couple of loads of laundry and thus had an extended time period at The Basement Workshop!!  I auditioned fabrics for what will become Crowbonics 1.  It will include one of the laminated fabrics created at the Crow Barn.  I found the perfect medium gray fabric and I'm thinking about doing a little bit of discharge on it to get some subtle colour change and movement behind the laminated sheer.  Discharging is a technique I personally do not want to use much to avoid health risk.  Jacquard's discharge paste is my tool of choice whenever I do.  And up to this point I've only used it to experiement with and then used it to create a design on a 1/4 yard of fabric.  I've seen a colour remover by Ritz but have not experimented with it to know anything about it.  I'm needing to remove just a little colour without any hard edges in order for the gray fabric to work for me.

I also spent some time quilting the piece shown at the top of this previous post.  There is still 2/3 of it left to quilt but as B.B. King sings "better not look down...just keep it moving".  One day I'll look up and have a plethora of quilts I love and will not know what to do with!

Here are 3 more laminated pieces that I did while on retreat...pieces that I hope will become focal pieces in the Crowbonics series.  (I have at least 3 series that are on going and just flow in and out of them depending on where my mind and heart are and what my body can handle.  If you create series work, how do you go about it?)

 Please keep in mind that these are all in process or experiments and not viewed at completed.

Yesterday I started burning into the piece below which is where the white shows through.  The white is from the lid of the scanner.

 

Do I speak a languid language?

I'm getting close to believing that pre-planning induces a deeper anxiety in me.  I didn't know that I'd end up with such a long stretch of time in The Basement, but I did.  Flowing from one thing to another worked for me today.  Just pick up something and go with it flow is what I did.   While there I did some exercises from Finding Your Own Visual Language and Image Transfer Workshop...

The transfer techniques involved allowing the image to dry completely in the gel medium and then spritzing with water and rubbing off.  If a solid filled image is important to the outcome then the culprit can be air pockets in spite of burnishing the back to get a good adhesion.  The larger image is on stretched canvas and the small image is a page inside a moleskin journal.  The desert image was a magazine photo and the crow was a laser printed on common printer paper.  Again, a techique that I'll relegate to altered books.

And right before I left I did this collage with some ink-jet printed fabrics that I'm in love with...instead of using them for some heavy message ladened art quilt, I just cut them into squares and rectangles and put them back together again.  Now I want to print off more of the same fabrics and just keep rearranging them into collages.  Ade, my youngest, called it "languid"...he meant it as a compliment...no, really, honest to goodness, he did...I think this is what I will title it.

And I'm lacking vim and vigor also, soooooo I'm taking my languid self to bed...Peace...

Gel Transfers using ink-jet images.

The transfer technique using gel medium is too unpredictable. I transfered onto paper, cotton, and a stretched canvas.The application of gel medium leans toward a thicker application then I expected in order to get a better transfer.  In this case, for the outcome, the use of materials seems a waste.  This technique gets moved over to altered books, fabric postcards at best.

I'm now trying a similiar image with a magazine page and a toner-based imageon paper and the stretched canvas.

Counting Crows

I haven't had much time to be at either place, The Workshop or the Studio.  For a second (a short second) I held the thought to sale my spot in the Benn/Morgan workshop next month at the Crow Barn. I will follow my own advice and not let single moments define my whole reality and future.  I've heard Nikki Giovanni speak several times and she tells a story of a visit somewhere in Central Africa and going to a village and a group of men identify themselves as "warriors" for the village...she asks "what wars have you fought?" and the reply was there hasn't been a war in over 100 years.  Giovanni's point was how can you call yourself warriors if you haven't fought in any wars.  I haven't been feeling like much of an artist of late and began to question the "what" as in what do I call myself doing?  These supplies are just wasted on me, yak, yak, yak...  The upcoming week with Leslie and Claire at the Crow Barn will be an opportunity for my mind to settle back into the processes of making art, (God willing and if the Creek don't rise)

I have a new granddaughter who was born last weekend.  Her name is Anaya which means God Answered.  She has been in ICU since Tuesday morning but the meaning of her name is not lost on her...everything has corrected itself and the last miracle we are waiting on is for her respirations to slow down and the water to clear off her lungs. 

Also, my father had a hospital stay and has transitioned into a nursing home for rehabilitation.  My mother and I have been trading off days to care for my 18 month on grandson, Carter, (named after Carter G. Woodson) big brother to Anaya. 

I'm settling into the head space where I can allow Grace to enter.  Patience is following and I have forgiven myself for not burying myself in art making and accepting this is the season to be and do for my family and accept this as the blessing it is.

With Carter in and out of my lap, I painted this Crow on a 6"x8" scrap of fabric.

As I typed this Martha Stewart demo'ed how to make felted soaps.

One of my favorite tunes that Cheryl Lynne Skinner use to sing when she performed locally had a line that said "i'm sitting in the house with everything on my mind, looking at the clock and can't even, can't even, tell the time". 

dig the gold by Liquitex!  

Amazingly, I'm calm and cool and relaxed even though I've not left my domain since coming home from the hospital.  I'm even letting the fingernails grow...(a little idiosyncracy about me, I clip them short because I do not like the whites of my nails to show and have never been a fan of long nails even when I had regular manicures done at salons...nail techs found me odd that way.  But this obsession with clipping them short as I do started about 3 years ago when I was going through some BS with my daugther and I just never stopped.  I also found short nails to be better for handling paints and dyes so it just made sense to continue.)

 beginning a new "design writing"

If I'm honest with myself, it will be March before I return to either The Basement Workshop or The Beauty of Holyness Studio.  The comments in the previous post boosted my spirits.  The idea to start "design writing" came intuitively without any preconceived ideas of where the lines and values would go.  I just kept changing up pens and writing anything from what I heard on tv, what the doctor said to me, something I recalled, or a slew of emotions.  The idea Mai-Britt offered to make copies and experiment with colouring them was like "a duh, why didn't I think of that" moment.  Thanks Mai-Britt for the idea.  I haven't been in Photoshop in so long that I didn't feel up to taking in sharp turns in my brain by trying to recall how to do layers, but when I do feel up to I think I'll try working them with colour that way. 

  

i got carried away

Deborah's idea to start a study made me go "wow! i'm going to do an entire journal, page after page design writing"  I dig this!  Then Acey suggested seeing them stitched and I thought "ummm, did she mean stitched paper quilts...thats cool, I've never done one...or did she mean print them on fabric, ummmm saw a quick layout in my head...then I thought a paper and cloth quilt!"  I dig this also.  The art of holiness and the holiness of art is that it is regenerative on soooo many levels, one being that it draws community, and out of community, one finds their tribe.  So thank you to all who commented, one love!

doodling faces to mimick Ethiopia artists.

Kicking off the year!

Well la ti da, looka here, looka here...this cold fluffy stuff that is so pretty to look at but whose reality is a bit harsh finally found us...the frigid temps wasn't enough, it had to go and snow! Its only a few inches but, still, ya know how I feel about the season that shall not be named. 

But I was not daunted! No, beloved, I managed to keep myself distracted and warm and worked my plan in spite of it all! 

FME Exercises (Shinn) 

VL (Dunnewold, Benn, Morgan)

 
MM (Fritz)  

What I've committed to doing this time around with my outlined curriculum (see previous post) is to stick with the exercises, ride them out so to speak, go a little further with them, versus rushing through them in order to get to the "fun" part.  For example, take the expanded shape exercises (middle image above). Instead of doing 10-20 of them and then moving to the next exercise, I'm going to overlap the exercises and continue to do the previous exercises while moving to the next one.  This will add some "depth" to what I do instead of moving through fast.  Afterall, the purchase of books is a serious investment and it doesn't make sense to keep adding to my shelves without really getting the benefit from them.  I'm even abandoning my approach to keep my books in pristine condition.  Why? For What?  No, this time I'm highlighting, making notes in the margins...really pushing myself to engage with the efforts that each author has made. 

Other happenings this week was finding 4 painted whole cloths that was my first intended series.  I didn't even remember doing them until I saw them and one of them just might become the background for the Audubon piece.  How sweet it is to look at something with new eyes, eh!? 

And another fresh discovery for this week is observing very little dye wash-out with acid dyes on silk which leads me to the conclusion that most of the dye adhers to the cloth.  Here are the scarves waiting for a 2nd layer of something...I'm thinking of some hand writing, any ideas for me?

Looking at these colours, I must have Spring on my mind :)

 Peace,