29 June 2016

Blue Book - just a start.....

This has nothing to do with cars. I am creating an altered book based on the color blue. I am planning on covering the book in some way with this piece of silk I dyed with MX dyes in hot wax, then steamed. It is from a Jane Dunnewold workshop I took years ago.






27 June 2016

Transperse dyes

I was going through a ten year old sketchbook this morning and came across two sheets of paper I had painted with transperse dyes. I did these years ago and just for kicks I wanted to see if they were still viable. I found a piece of 100% polyester satin and ironed away. The heat from the iron causes the chemicals in the paint to turn to gas and become deposited on the fabric.




Of course these images were once very highly pigmented. I may paint right over the images I have and try again. I feel some hand quilting coming on.

On another note I was so surprised how many things in my sketchbook I have incorporated into my working life and how many things I thought were so cool I see now as very elementary. 


24 June 2016

Felted Cuff

This summer at the "Maine Event" we are having a short felting workshop presented by Janine, my new friend from Ontario who recently moved here. We are also having a workshop on adding stitch to our work as well as some beading. Then I thought if people wanted to, they could practice their stitch and beading on their felted piece. 
In that vein, I decided to get a piece of felted scrap out of my basket and make a cuff. This scrap is felted wool with silk chiffon felted on to it. I cut it into somewhat of a "cuff shape" and got to work. 

First I stitched in a shisha mirror. Then I couched some sari yarn on the cuff and around the mirror.



I stitched these beads on using the fly stitch.


Then I picked out some beads from my huge bead stash. I used a larger cobalt bead to stitch the edges with a blanket stitch 



I had some two toned flat round beads that looked like they were raku. After that I made some dangley beads and called it good.





This is a Velcro closure









22 June 2016

Marcella came to play

Today Marcella came over to dye some silk. She is taking a "Book Cloth" workshop this weekend so she brought over a few silk blouses to use for the workshop.


The first silk blouse


This is the silk blouse out of the microwave. Love those colors


Such yummy colors


This orange silk blouse was indigo dyed last summer but the marks look brown. Bleeck


Here it is over dyed with great areas of interest for a book cover


Look at that silk!!!!!


These were three or four monoprints on cotton that I made YEARS ago. I gave them to Marcella and we over dyed them today. Forgot to get a photo of the final product.


These are some crow stencils in dye on cotton


Here they are after scrapping on thickened dye


This was a piece of pre-treated cotton I had hanging around. I just dumped all the left over thickened dye on it and smooshed it in the fabric. A bit dark but it might come in handy sometime.


20 June 2016

The Black Box


I have been working on this for over a week and things aren't going so well. Here I am up to now.


This is the design I am going to use on the front and back panels of the box. This is a "kantha" stitched book I made at the Dorothy Caldwell workshop. On the top of the box I will make a sun and moon.


Paper patterns for transferring the designs once sketched onto the box. The main problem, you can't see the image on the black box so I had to scribe them in with a ballpoint pen and pressure.


There is trouble in Paradise surrounding this box and I may have to go to plan B. More to come.

17 June 2016

Cleaning up the paint


After finishing the boring beige tape piece, I still had quite a bit of acrylic paint left on my palette. I had on the side of my table a monoprint I did on the vegetarian gelli plate. Sometimes things just need to hang around a bit until an idea comes to mind. I decided to use the "background" painting technique to use up the paints and glazing medium left behind. The first thing I pullout out was the monoprint.


I used up all the paint on my palette but still needed more to finish off this piece.





I will be working back into this again 



This was a scrap of tracing paper that I used to try to "pick up" paint left on the Gelli plate. The artist's version of toilet paper (smile) 

This may end up in pieces on the monoprint. I'll see what strikes me.

15 June 2016

Fini



I have finally finished the boring beige tape piece. I'll tell you that the graphite stick really added a lot of great texture which may not be easy to see in pictures. This was fun and a real challenge for me.
I think you can click on the photo twice and it will expand two times.


13 June 2016

Not sure where I am going here

I bought this pretty wooden box years ago for next to nothing at an outlet for high end decorative items in the Old Port (Portland, Maine). I have had it for over 15 years and I have always wanted to repaint it. I just painted it flat black. It had an OK white on black  design but it was pretty boring. I'm not sure yet but I think it may involve crows and pine trees.


10 June 2016

a LONG term project


This is a book I started to get ready for an altered book project. First I sewed 3 or 4 pages together both by hand and with a sewing machine. Then I gessoed the pages.


Also the cover. This will be a L O N G term project but this is where it all starts


08 June 2016

Today is the day

June 8th , today, is the day I get my immobilizer off. Yeah!!!!!!
Meanwhile I will catch you up on that ugly piece of beige taped paper.


First I took a big graphite stick and rubbed it on the paper within an inch of it's life. Love what the graphite stick did for enhancing the texture.


Then I took some Noodler's Polar Brown pen ink and made some drips. It took 24 hours for that ink to dry. Go figure. I still have a few more tricks up my sleeve for this exercise.


06 June 2016

A NEED for dyeing


Is it bad taste to discuss our chemical dependence (on MX dyes)? My partner, Brian wanted new pillow cases for his four, yes four, pillows. I accommodated with pleasure. I bought a new set of double bed sheets and four pillow cases. I washed them all together and just picked out 4 pillow cases to dye. Guess what? One didn't want to dye in spite of he fact that the tag said 100% cotton. What a pest.


Soaking in water


Dye added and you can see the troublemaker on the upper left.


These look a big more anemic than they really turned out which was very nice.


03 June 2016

Hand made cards

OK so I am milking it trying to make it til next week when I get the immobilizer off my arm. Still these are nice projects.

These are 2 of 3 cards I made when I lived in Portland (Maine) 16 years ago. I have already sent on to my cousin who had heart surgery and these two will be going to Little Rock  too. Aren't they nice?


This one has a leathery look paper with corrugated copper foil, copper wire mesh and embossed copper foil.


This one has thin cork, hand made paper, curvy corrugated paper, and corrugated copper foil.



01 June 2016

Playdate

This was a 4 for. Janine, Judith, Marcella and I got together to put color on paper. We had a ball Judith even smiled when I took her picture.



Janine's first sheet


Judith did three 18 X 24" sheets on both sides


 This was Janine with some tape then working colors on top. LOTS of layers of paint.



Judith 





Then Judith cut hers up and made a color of color with four 8 pages signatures.




Janine's second piece finished


mine

June 8th I get my immobilizer off. FREEDOM!!