Gelatin Plate

While I paint and work very fast, in fact I have to force myself to slow down so my students can see what I'm doing, my paints are still drying too quickly on my gelatin plate. It is very dry here right now, very dry.

So tomorrow I'll have to get some retarder for my paint. I can't wait. I had to stop tonight because I ran out of surfaces to work on and that's a first for me.

Actually, I had forgotten how addictive printing could be. I'm going to have to dig through my fabric stash and see what I have that can be sacrificed for the cause. I have some commercial batiks that I'm not so fond of anymore that'd make good candidates. I don't think my natural dyes will show up well on them though as these fabrics are already pretty brilliant in color, but the synthetic paints will show up nicely, especially the metallic ones.

So now I'm in the process of photographing and video taping the gelatin plate process for my classes. It's a lot of fun, and that's an understatement! Unfortuantley it's getting late here so I need to think about turning in for the night. I'll try to remember to post pics, but the memory is a bit lacking of late.

Collage


I have this narrow drawer that I decided to create into a shrine of sorts. In it I am putting my mothers slippers and her curlers, amongst other things. I really love the knob on the top of the drawer, so I'm planning to play it up somehow.

Mom was a world class scavenger, she told everyone she was a crow. Dad likened her more to a racoon, but she definately had an affliction for anything shiny. I'll have to go to the attic and get her antique bottle collection, that she found in the field behind their house, so I can include the bottles in the box.

She also liked pretty things, though you'd have never known it about her, too rough and tumble. You were more apt to find her on a lake somewhere fishing or hunting than at any prissy social function. So somehow I'll combine found objects, that she gave me along the way, and other items I have found with this piece. Unfortunately this is the only drawer I have like this, it came with printing blocks in it that I bought at a yard sale. I guess I purchased the drawer just for the blocks.

Thread Carrier


Well I was offered many many ideas for toting my threads around but this one won out by far, mainly because I already owned the container. It's hinged which is great as I don't have to worry about losing the lid, a typical occurance in my studio!

As you can see I have a bit of things in my box for my projects, what you don't see are the tubs and tubs of other items that I need a carrier for to get from the design studio to the wet studio. This would include all of the silk ribbons, lace, trims, and buttons.

My dream is to someday have both studios on the same floor and somehow connected to one another, with the bathroom in close proximity. Ok maybe this is more fantasy than dream.

Cochineal



I'll tell you more about this later after I get my project done. But I dyed this piece of wool, and that's what I'll tell you about later, with cochineal bugs. Actually my dyebath is about three months old now.

Oh and this is what happens when you leave your cochineal bath unattended, needless to say my studio really stunk after the pot boiled over.

Gelatin Plate Printing




Tomorrow is a day dedicated to Gelatin Plate and other things, my supplies finally showed up today. I ran out of materials to work with, I'm still cringing at the cost of my favorite paper, haven't bought it yet either, but I admit it I'm a Rives BFK paper junkie! Unforutantely I cannot purchase this paper locally anymore so I'm stuck ordering a carton of the paper, you don't even want to know how expensive this is going to be, trust me you could buy a lot of thread!

Here are some pieces of silk dupoini that I made prints onto using my gelatin plate, I used natural dyes, lac extract, on the plate. If I can find it I'll put the before curing and washing pic up so you can see just how much color is lost in the process. I'm still getting used to, after all these years, making my extract solutions about 50% darker than I think I'll actually need. It takes some getting used to because your eyes tell your brain it's way too dark but in the wash out phase, especially on cotton, it typically comes out where it really should be value and color wise.

Of Studios and Women


Well what can I say except Of Mice and Men was taken. Anyway...

I've been busy the last two days, and barring any brain crushing headaches that send me back to the hospital I'm hoping that tomorrow will be a great day as well. The doc still doesn't really know what happened except that it was a combination of things and it's probably a miracle that I'm even here.

So far I've had a CT scan, a MRI, an eye exam (20 20 vision what more could a girl pushing 40 ask for right) and chest x-rays. Talk about your 40 mile work up! Anyway I see another doc on Monday. I'm thinking it's a combination of being bit, twice, stress from the shopping cart refusing to cooperate, and the anesthesia still wearing off, from surgery I had 4 weeks ago. It's just a guess, but my friends and I are starting to think it's the 40 mile melt down, the body gets older I stress it out and it attacks me back - sound fair enough???

Here's a pic for some visual eye candy, in progress as ususal. I'll be sure to post a pic of the piece when it's done.

Some minor changes

I made some minor changes to my art website k. baxter packwood today so if you see something you are interested in there is additional information on my art website.

I'm in sore need of updating everything, I have some 40 scarves, all of which are gorgeous, that need their pictures taken and then they need to be put up on my art website for sale. I just haven't found the time but maybe this weekend, if I sell these scarves then I can make more. Sometimes I wish a little photography elf would show up in my studio and take pics while I'm merrily working away and put them up on the websites for me.

Next I need to get all of my links updated and working, if you'd like to share links please let me know. I'm still trying to figure out how to make logo buttons, well I have some made but I can't seem to get them uploaded to the blog, even though I made a draft of the image already. In some respects I loathe computers, they are so difficult to get things done on.

Bite Marks

I went to the emeregency room yesterday, and after a cat scan I was sent home with some drugs and told to stay out of hte light and away from noise for 24 hours. I was told I had had a "neurological event".

Well I found the cause this morning, don't know if the quacks in this town can handle it or not, but I have a bite mark, looks pretty much like the mark of a brown recluse. If so this is my third time being bit, which can't possibly be good for me.

I was in the rose bushes, trying to get to the water valve so I could water my garden, don't ask I'll take pics and you'll understand why. Anyway I felt something bite my legs, twice actually and I do have two bite marks. I shrugged it of as skeeters and watered the gardens.

I was in the emergency room a half hour later. Anyway...

Untitled in Red all pinned up


And somewhere to go! I haven't decided the orientation yet, other than it will be vertical. I need to flip it 180 degrees and see if I like it the other way first, then I"m off to audition threads and thread colors. I definately decided on machine stitching, dh informed me that he knew I'd decide on that as hand stitching would take too long on such a large piece; it's 54" or more long.

Now I just need to go fetch my music from the wet studio and I'm good to go. I may do some attachements to this piece, haven't decided yet. I will redeem my sample piece however, with attachements, and a psuedo applique of sorts, I'll show you all later. I have a quilt piece I need to get done for Doing Small Things and this sample piece is going to fit right in with what I was thinking.

Humidity

I will admit it I have succombed! I turned the central air on about five minutes ago, it is SOOOOOooooooo humid here it's beyond belief, and the wind stopped. I really feel for those who don't have air conditioning. I'll probably turn it off on Wednesday as a cold front will move in late Tuesday night.

My studio while it is very cool, is growing mildew at a breakneck pace and I can't have that, on a multitude of levels.

Wet Studio




A nice collection of fabrics to play with. I'm not nearly as busy as I'd like to be, but a certain husband of mine didn't have time to make the new platform for the encaustic pots to go onto, so I have to wait until he gets home. Normally I'd use them on my counter top, but that's well out of view of my camera, which is mounted, permanantly to the ceiling. I need the platform so I can work on my screen printing table without melting my surface, this also happens to be where the camera is pointing.

I've decided that shutting off the phones is the way to go! I'm interrupted way way too much by the phone and it's no wonder I never get anything acomplished.

Untitled in Red



The coloring is off a bit here and it's too icky outside to photograph it outside today. It's a bit darker, but not by much. Here's two views hopefully you can decifer the color better this way. I'm hopping excited to quilt this beauty.

Btw this IS the piece that you see a few posts down from this one! As you can see washing it darkens the colors after composting. There were quite a few rusty nails on the fabric, rust i.e., iron shifts red bearing dyestuffs towards the blue end, or in this case purple, end of the spectrum. Ooooooh the bug to create.

The Big Spring Clean

I'm not sure when and how it happened but up until last night we had five dressers in our bedroom, six if you count my little nightstand. I moved one dresser out last night, with the help of my husband. Hopefully I will get more stuff moved, in the spare bedroom that doubles as my husbands study, or he'd like it to be anyway.

If I have my way we will have only two dressers, both of which will hold his clothes, in our bedroom and my night stand, this will give us an enormous amount of floor space in our bedroom! If I had my camera up here I'd take pictures.

I'll have to work on that this evening though, right now I have encaustic work, gelating plate printing, and digital printing to go do. This is not a burden btw, I'm teaching classes on these topics, but came up with an idea early this morning, well you will just have to watch my other blogs and see what I came up with.

Then I have a ton of laundry to do, and wool fleeces to get washed, and asap! And I'd really love it if the yard was mowed and the rest of my plants in the ground or in their planters/hanging pots. I'm trying to spend one hour each day outside, it's amazing how many weeds one can pull in the space of an hour.

Fertile Ground


I can't wait to start in on this piece "Fertile Ground" I'm so glad I composted this piece of fabric, I have a few other duds I'm going to compost now, including a rather large rusted piece. The rubbery stuff from the gutta is still fighting coming off, I've been picking bits of it off, and it went through the washer three times. It needs to be ironed before I can do any stitching.

The weather here has been really weird all day, and it's humid beyond belief I guess it decided it was time for summer to begin?! I just know I"m tired of the sound the dehumidifier makes already, and it's not even June yet.

QSDS


I was going to send fabric to QSDS but have finally decided not to do so. One my fabric isn't done, the way I want it to be done, and two I want to turn these two pieces into quilts. Recenlty I got the bug to start producing again, both yardage and artwork, and I want to keep with that momentum. Which means in a nutshell NOT shipping of the fabrics I love to an exhibition to be sold off but rather using them myself.

I've also gotten the bug to do handstitching as well. I have this gorgeous red crinkle crepe that I need to wash yet, and will hand quilt/stitch it when it comes to construction time. I need to dye up some other reds to go with is as I'm thinking of carving this one up and using it bit by bit.