art

It's Been Awhile


So begins a new series I've titled "Fields". So far the goal is 18 large pieces and 12 small pieces. I'm using earth pigments, charcoal, conte, and mixed media pm cotton and silk fabrics this time around with machine stitching as the finishing touch.

I've been dragging my feet to start on this series, as it is the first series where I won't be using natural dyes. Fabric painting begins tonight. Photos coming soon.

Corn 2016


Corn No. 49 from 2012

Just when I thought I didn't have anything more to say about Corn, I was asked to participate in a three woman show come January 2017.  I was asked if I would be interested in creating some new Corn pieces for the show.

I said yes, all the while thinking I'm done with Corn, why am I saying yes?

Well it turns out I'm not done with Corn. The subconscious wants what it wants, and it was clearly wanting Corn.

Yesterday I managed to purchase the stretched canvas upon which my new pieces shall be mounted, and for a really good price.


Upon that purchase all sorts of imagery of finished pieces popped into my head. This time I'm going for a more earthy approach, using actual soil, clays, ochers, and earth pigments in combination with indigo, rust, and natural dyes (yes I'll be dyeing with corn husks, leaves, cobs, etc, with just a touch of digitally printed fabrics that lends to the modern digital tech age today's farms are becoming!

Stay tuned!!!


Looking Back...

Shroud No. 1
Cotton Fabric
Natural Dyes
Rust
Time
Air
2002


I started out with several yards of white cotton fabric that I wrapped around a pile of leaves, twigs, stones, etc. into what looked like a swaddled child.


And there it sat, for a couple of months, in a rusty wheel barrow filled with rain water and vinegar.


And then it lived on my concrete driveway for a couple of months.  


The fabric bundle unwrapped.



Detail of the marks, stains, etc. 

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! 

Hello Monday Thoughts on Licensing Fear and Adobe Illustrator


The past few years in art licensing have been interesting to say the least.  I think it was sometime late 2013 I had decided that I really wanted to learn how to use Adobe Illustrator for repeat pattern design and for everything else one would use it for creating licensable designs.

My long suffering and very loving husband gave me the money for what was at that time to me an expensive class.  Yay me, I'm going to master Illustrator.  Not!!!  By week three I was so damned terrified of the program it'd be almost a year and a half before I'd even open the program on my computer again.

You see it turns out that while the instructor knows gobs about creating repeat patterns, designs, icons from one's original artwork and the like she didn't know jack shit about Illustrator and to be honest should have never have been teaching a course on illustrator!

Roll in Bonnie Christine and Elizabeth Olwen via Skillshare.  While not promising me that I would master Illustrator, like the last instructor had, they did tell me that I would at least know how to turn the program on and with lots of practice I too could create a vector, and most importantly create images that could be translated into a repeat pattern.  And they delivered on what they had promised.

Curious I decided to sign up for Brad Woodard's Adobe Illustrator classes.  Brad where have you been the past three years!!! I learned more about Illustrator from him in one week than I had in three years elsewhere, most importantly which tools inside of Illustrator that would make my work flow efficient, no more doing things the hard way!

So curiosity got the better of me and I went back to the original class, started at the beginning thinking that well now that I understand the terminology and some of the tools now maybe, just maybe...

Oh hell I didn't even last five minutes before I was screaming at my computer monitor telling the instructor that she was doing it wrong, all wrong, she was using the wrong tools, making things way harder than they had to be... and then it dawned on me.  She sucked!  I had been living in fear of a computer program for well over a  year because this woman had NO business teaching a class on illustrator! This is some instructors super power by the way, they teach fear, they don't teach skill, confidence, etc, no they teach fear.  Walk away, NO RUN AWAY from these people they are toxic!

Sooooo, are you still there?  This fall I was invited to participate in an interview about art licensing and my studio habits/life.  I was excited, ecstatic, it's a REALLY good thing Annie told me she wanted my interview information on November 25th instead of the actual deadline of November 29th because I probably would have found a reason to say No!

Why you ask?  Even though I've been licensing my stencil designs with StencilGirl Products I have yet to get up the courage to send my portfolio out to agents for representation. Because I'm afraid.  What am I afraid of you might ask?  To be honest nothing in particular, other than being accepted... Yes I'm nuts, I think I may have stated this before.

But looking at the sheets I put together for Annie's interview I see now that being afraid of being rejected is just as lame as being afraid of being accepted.  I'd like to spend more time pondering this topic but I have some drawing to do and will then digitize those images in Illustrator for creating licensable art.  


Blackbirds in Trees Stencil from StencilGirl Products

 So this is where I've been the past three years, hiding in my studio creating work like a mad woman and too afraid to submit it because "what if they want more and I can't deliver"???

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.

Stitching Again


It feels good to be stitching once again, whilest awaiting layers of drying paint to cure.  This piece is about 8x10 inches in size, machine stitched with green Aurifil thread, wool batting; I also used my Black Birds in Tree Stencil with acrylic paint onto fabric painted cotton cloth.


I shall stitch a few of the birds next, to bring them forward, and add a few beads and then this piece will be done.


Black Birds in Trees


Working on some Crow Cards this afternoon using my Black Birds in Tree Stencil.


The orange mat is a non-slip artist map, unfortunately there is no label on the mat so I have no idea where it came from.


I started out with a piece of painted timtex that was painted by Seta Color Fabric Paints.  I will be adding some oil bar, ink, and other yummies next, and then it's time for some stitching.

WIP Dusk at the Marsh


I am working on a stitched story piece about one of my favorite local marshes and my stencil Black Birds in Tree are the main focus in this new series.  The marshes, Cooper's Marsh & Larson's Marsh, which is just a few miles east of Ames, Iowa, are surrounded by farmland.  


Seta Color Fabric paint on cotton fabric, I painted this fabric using a salt technique sometime around 2004/05. The orange piece is a non-slip gripping pad that holds the fabric in place while I surface the fabric.


I should be able to get four smaller pieces out of the larger piece of fabric, the piece directly above this photo.


For the purple stenciled areas I'm using Galleria thick body paint as it is less inclined to bleed. I applied the paint using a stencil brush and very thin layers of paint building the image up onto the fabric, why yes my hand is sore now!


Finished, the stencil did stick to the fabric, where it came into contact with the wet paint that soon dried.


I have to admit this is my all time favorite stencil in my series!  I will probably leave this particular piece of fabric as is for the moment and work on the other three pieces.  I am toying with using my inverse stencil on one of the pieces, more to come!


Junkin in June


More washi tape, from my favorite source Pixi's in Gilbert, IA. I have to admit that keeping a personal journal has become a lot more fun now that I've started incorporating all of those elements I've been collecting, but had no place in my regular artwork!  


Picked these up from one of the vendors at JB Knacker in Gilbert, IA this afternoon during their annual Junkin in June event!  


My watercolor issue resolved now that I've been reminded that I own sets of Caran D'Ache's Aquarelle watercolor crayons as I wasn't looking forward to replacing 20 year old dried up tubes of watercolor paints anytime soon!  Now that I'm using my aquarelle's again I can take my time and buy the colors I need preferably on sale as sets or as single tubes.

Birds in Tree with Madder Lac


Madder lac natural dye extract screen printed, using deconstructed screen printing techniques with my Birds in Tree Inverse Stencil, onto cochineal dyed cotton fabric.


Birds in Tree Inverse Stencil taped to the front of a traditional silk screen for deconstructed screen printing!  Stay tuned for more on this technique!!!

Learn more about these techniques in my eBook and Video series 
Mark Making with Nature!!! 


WIP Queen Anne's Crows No 5


I'm not overly ripped on this shade of red, but for a base coat on the wood this will do, I'm wanting a much deeper shade of red. As for the paint dripping on the stitched panel never fear, that panel has been covered with plastic wrap.

I have to say I had doubts but this was a great idea, I figure if I truly end up hating the color(s) I can always paint the piece black, BUT, the act of painting the wood got me to thinking about the piece, what I want to add and where, what other colors do I want to add, do I want to leave the birds as is?  Btw you can get hose birds from my stencil series over at StencilGirl Products, the birds are a part of my Three Crows Series.  Am off to look at my copper nail and barbed wire collections while this layer of paint dries!


Before the first layer of red paint.

Natural Dyed Hexagons


Natural, compost (bundle), and rust dyed cotton fabrics.  The dark red was obtained using a Turkey Red recipe.


I started these hexagons using my natural and compost dyed fabrics in March of 2005, the weekend my mother died actually, and found them last night while I was looking for a missing stack of colored papers.  This couldn't of happened at a better time as I am currently working on a new body of work called "Faded Memories: Stitched Stories of the Prairie and Plains" for an upcoming solo show at the Sanford Museum in Cherokee, Iowa.

This new body of work will encompass both traditional and digital techniques, and to say that I found these hexies made up already would be an understatement! The hexagons are from a pattern known as Grandmother's Garden, which seems rather appropriate for this new body of work!