Studio

On My Table


Sulfur shelf fungus harvested some fifteen years ago now, displayed on a very old silver plate platter which serves to catch any bit of detritus that seems to fall continuously from the fungus.


Otherwise known as Chicken of the Woods (Laetiporus sp.)

Run, don't walk, to buy this book it's beyond delicious!!!

Back in Decemember I decided that 2016 would be about focusing on studio practices, improving rusty skills, and in general creating more artwork.


Which lead to the purchase of several online classes, books, art supplies and more.  Now if I could only remember what I learned from my Illustrator and Photoshop classes, sigh.  Sometimes I swear my brain is a sieve. 


I ""highly"" recommend these four books, and two more books that will be arriving this week!

Finding Oneself


Or maybe this post should be titled giving myself permission to do what I love!  I've started digging my collections out of my office and wet studio and bringing them into my design studio, you know the place were I create!


There's this meme that has been circulating on Facebook that says, essentially, the things you spend the most time doing, that's your passion and that's where we should focus our energies.  Well my passion is nature, gardening, hiking, collecting natural items like shells, bits of bark with lichens on them, rocks, bones, flowers, seed pods, and more.


And art supplies, I love to collect and use art supplies!


And plants!  This spring I will start amassing native prairie plants that love shade and will turn my front and side yards into prairie gardens!


It's been almost three months since I planted the terrariums, and they are thriving! 

Pumpkin Season has Arrived


Typically I buy quite a variety of pumpkins and squash each year, this year I decided to buy a bunch of fake pumpkins and squash.  I'm still looking for a really large fake pumpkin that looks "authentic".
Why would I buy fakes instead of real ones?

Simple.

I'm setting up a still life in my studio for painting, drawing, etc., and the real ones don't last into March, about the time when I'll be designing  collections for next Fall.

I have a ton of  photos for color and texture references (taken at a local pumpkin farm), but there's nothing as nice as working from a real 3D object.

And don't worry my designs won't look anything like these in the photos, they are just a starting point to work from.


Now to find a decent looking fake pomegranate and all will be well in the world of studio props.

Studio Purge Continues


Well the good news is I've made a lot of progress in the studio.  The bad news is now I'm cleaning, purging, and organizing about seven different things at once and it wasn't intentional but its a necessary evil.

I'm at the point where I moved my thread cabinets off of the big shelves and onto the cubbies, this is temporary until the place where I really want to live is freed up, but that space is currently occupied with stuff that either needed to go onto the big shelves or be given away.

I'm getting there, thank heavens!  When all is said and done the artwork right there in front of the cubbies, you know living on my studio floor, will soon have a home on the big shelves.  But first I must move my massive paint collection out of the blue dresser and onto the carts, and then the fabric living on the big shelves, well most of it anyway, can go live in the blue dresser.

Make sense?  Me neither.  I hope to have an update by this coming weekend.  The only thing standing in my way at the moment is the fact that the studio floor needs vacuuming before I can proceed any further.  And there is a huge dog sleeping in the middle of said floor.


Oliver, my faithful studio assistant who doubles as a paper weight.

The Drawing Table


The drawing table is finally in front of the coveted window!!!


Next up is repairing my drafting table chair, which should happen sometime tonight.  Calligraphy tools found, cart stocked with ink at the ready.  It's time to create!

In the meantime I'm still shoveling stuff out of my studio work space and will continue to sort, purge, and pitch stuff that no longer serves me.  I will be hosting a huge online sale here and soon, I thought that was going to happen last week and boy did I ever miss the mark on that one!

Where Have I Been Part 2


Yes there will be a design wall in this new space!


No more chicken coop wall, now it's a wall of cubbies pushed back a good eight feet for more space!


My drawing table is going in front of that big window there to the left, sewing table will be pushed at an angle further back once everything blocking it is gone.  The end of August cannot come soon enough!


I put it all into  well labeled boxes!!! I will be sorting and purging most of this through the month of August,  I'm hoping to have a huge artist yard sale towards the end of August when the students return.

Where Have I Been?

I have been in the middle of a studio redux, aka purging, pitching, and then setting the space up in a more organized manner.


I've posted photos of how my studio looked before, so there's no sense in belaboring that topic.  Since I've been asked before where I bought my studio furniture well John built all of the cubbies and shelf units you seen in these photos.


My self-imposed deadline to have the space vacated in front of that big picture window is tonight.  My self-imposed deadline to move my drawing table in front of said window is Sunday night, because there's a whole lotta cleaning, and further purging, that's going to happen between now and Sunday.


Fiber Purge Begins!!!


Tomorrow I shall be listing in my new ebay store, new because they apparently closed mine due to not using it for five years, wool and silk fibers of all types!  I also have gobs of needle felting and knitting tools I'll be divesting of, as I am now going in an entirely different direction with my studio.


Mohair in several color ways.


Loose hand dyed wool fibers of several varieties including llama and alpaca.



And I will also be divesting of some of my natural dyes, not the indigo or cochineal (yet anyway).

Studio Redux Part 2

Otherwise known as the overflow area!


Vintage dresser that's stuffed full of art supplies such as paints, etc.


Another view heading into my sewing studio, Oliver is not amused with all of this moving around.


This old chicken coop hutch divides my sewing area from the over flow area, as you saw in the previous post the backside of this hutch is where my extensive thread collection lives.  I want to get rid of the chicken coop, or find another place for it to live, but if I do so then I need to come up with a better way to keep Oliver out of my studio.  He's a thread, fabric, and paper thief, amongst other hobbies he has.


Cubbies filled with "stuff", an old Duncan phyfe table, my loom, several dress forms, deer antlers, skulls, and boxes and boxes of fabric.   You get the picture.


Shelf that holds painted papers, artwork, and the like, and the plastic drawer units?  Filled with silk, wool, cotton, and linen fibers.

More tomorrow, there shall be fiber kits assembled and ready to find new homes.

Studio Purge Part One

Over the next few days I will be posting not only images of my studio spaces, for accountability purposes, but also to let you know what is available.  I will be selling some items check out the studio purge tab for daily updates, and others will go to new homes for the sole cost of shipping!


In thinking about my "brand" I've had to make a decision as to which mediums and colors I will be working with and "why"!  This wall here contains beads, findings, and all sorts of mixed media objects that is and should be heaven for most artists.  Well this was true until today when I got into the last fight I ever want to have with myself over studio space EVER again!

Yes that is right, you know every time you scream in frustration because you can no longer move in your studio space, or find that book you need to finish a project at the last hour, you are fighting with yourself!

Stop fighting with yourself!


More beads, jars of silk cocoons, buttons, bells, baubles, and all sorts of nummies.  The crates above are filled with mixed media papers, findings, Angelina fibers, pine cones, silk carrier rods, and who knows what else.  Well I'm planning to start excavating tomorrow so we will soon find out what else lies within those crates.


Far shelf, more beads, findings, jars with little bells in them... you get the picture.  Foreground that's supposed to be my sewing table and right now it's loaded with drawing and painting supplies.


The other side of my sewing table.  The plastic drawer stuff (to the south of the table) are filled with vintage, antique, and somewhat modern laces, threads, buttons, ric rac, you name it, oh and a ton of handspun yarns from fibers I carded and dyed myself and in some cases even acquired from local sheep I used to sheer.


The wall of thread!  And those little plastic drawer organizers, if you guessed filled with beads you'd be correct.  And they are also over flowing with embroidery floss, pearl cottons, and the like.



More thread, and those plastic tubs are filled with... if you guessed vintage and antique trims you'd be correct! Two of the tubs are also filled with natural dyed wool, silk, and cotton fabrics.  All of those baskets and tubs on top are filled with more fibers, more threads, and more mixed media objects, seeing a theme here  yet???


And sweeping past the entrance to my sewing room... More threads under the clock.


More fabric, more threads, more fibers, and no place to put finished artwork!  This is the north wall in my sewing studio and I want ALL of this stuff to go bye bye, with the exception of the shelf (you see the side of it here) with the clock.  My goal is to put my drawing table and new flat file cabinet (that hubs is building for me) on this wall.


Finally the corner where I started, the NW corner of my studio.  Again more fibers, more threads, more fabric, all dyed with natural dyes.  Oh and a ton of knitting supplies and latruador that I'm never going to get to in this life time.

Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow the area of my studio known as the "overflow" area.

Preparing for Dinner in my Studio


A couple of years ago I moved my studio out of what was once upon a time a master bedroom in our house and into the living and dining rooms.  Hubs was tired of my being holed up in my studio 8-12 hours a day and never seeing me.  Now he sees me all of the time.

Dilemma.  We are hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year, but we no longer have a dining room.  So enters in brilliant and creative idea to host a dinner party in my studio.  I find the idea both exciting and terrifying at the same time.  Tomorrow we will move our old dining room table, a Duncan Phyfe that seats 16, from it's hiding place in my sewing studio and put it back into the dining room where my drafting table currently resides.

The wonderful part is we are doing more purging and deep cleaning so the house is looking better every single day.


Angel got a bath today, she had me worried for awhile as she was shivering and like crazy afterwards but that all stopped after she ate some warm hamburger.   We will be taking her to the vet, hopefully tomorrow, to see what needs to be done next, I'm not ready to send her over the bridge yet, but, she's lost a dreadful amount of weight and which has me really worried.  She made it to 15 which I hear is quite the accomplishment for a Sheltie.

Soup!


Portuguese Kale Soup!!!  Right now everything feels soupy, from this unusually early cold spell to the upheaval in my sewing room.  Late last week the ceiling in my sewing room start snap, crackle, and popping so I started moving stuff out for the soon to happen tear down of the ceiling.  Hopefully it won't decide to come down on it's own between now and Sunday when hubs vacation starts.

Pears


Let there be pears, I would say more but I'm off to play with my new stencil in my studio tonight. The inspiration for this pear came from a red and green striped pear that our pear tree seems to be fond of producing, and I'm not sure what causes this to happen, however, it is really inspiring.


Somewhere in this mess of computer files I have a photo of the striped pears on the tree, this was one of the ones I picked for drawing and photographing in the studio.


I also cut this crow tonight.

Getting the Studio Ready


From this, packed in and hiding behind the stairs...


To this, now I can access my paint supplies that live in this blueish dresser.  The shelf needs to be wiped clean and it'll be ready to don my artwork for this weekends Ames Studio Tour!  I'll have John hang the pink niche, on the dresser, on the wall when he gets home from work.

At this point all I have left to do is dust, some more vacuuming, and get my artwork ready for Saturday.  Next week I shall sort the items on the shelf next to the dresser, and the stuff IN the dresser and send off to live with others!