Mark Making with Nature Video Series

Mark Making with Nature Video Series
Beyond the Ordinary in Surface Design


Digital Video Series 

This video series is available as a digital download from Vimeo.com!

Part One:
  • Getting Started
  • Painting with Natural Dyes & Gutta Resists
  • Creating a mono chromatic painting with Natural Dyes
  • Bound Resist

Part Two:
  • Other Resists, using tape as a resist, etc.
  • Monoprinting with objects.
  • Screen printing with Natural Dyes
  • Stamping and More with Natural Dyes

Part Three:
  • Bundle and/or Compost Dyeing
  • Other Bundle Dyeing techniques
  • Mixing Surface Design Techniques (painting, resists, etc.,) to achieve gorgeous cloth!

Part Four:
  • Making the Gum Tragacanth Binder
  • Using textured brayers to make marks on the cloth
  • Screen Printing using resists and non traditional techniques (a variation on deconstructed screen printing)

  • Monoprinting with found vegetation such as grasses and leaves.

Spring has Sprung!


Angel and Oliver hanging out in the outdoor dog run last summer.


Remember all of the hard work John did last Spring to build up my raised gardens in the front yard, here is a photo from last year?  Well we are going to move them to the north garden because mostly we get more sunlight in the back yard than we do in the front yard.  

Soooooo, today began the long process of clearing out the north garden, John removed the fence posts, and the chicken wire fencing while I cleaned up all of the trash that blew into our yard over this past winter.  I also organized all of the fence posts, etc., and otherwise acted as his runner for tools and such, while Angel and Oliver hung out in the outdoor kennel.  

Hopefully next weekend I'll have new photos to share as we embark on this new journey, but we are both in agreement that we love the raised beds and this is the direction we want to go, that and a quarter or half CSA share which we need to make a decision on in the next week or so.  I will say that I was excited to see that my raised beds are completely thawed out, a minor miracle considering this years winter and the fact that we still have ice in the back yard!

WIP Red Crow



The madder lac dyed silk organza is much darker than these photos depict, the stencil sketch of the crow barely peaking through due to the lighting.  I managed to stitch an outline of the crow in a coordinating reddish heathered wool thread from Aurifil Threads.

I've decided that this smallish piece will now become part of a larger piece I'm working on for my upcoming solo show, as crows and ravens have always been a prominent icon out here on the western prairie and plains.

A Crow Project


Crow Stencil  from StencilGirl Products outlined in Pitt Pen with Shiva Paintstiks in iridescent copper and white, on madder lac dyed silk organza layered over white silk dupioni fabric.  Timtex core with white cotton backing.  Machine and hand stitching.

The paintstiks don't show up well in this photo, will take a photo tomorrow using natural light.

Oliver Files: The Watcher


This is the hurry up and pick out those hexagons stare, he finally gave up and went to sleep.  He really wants to play with my fabrics, and trims which wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't so insistent on shredding everything.


Said hexagons, the smaller ones were dyed with natural dyes the deep red obtained using a turkey red recipe, the blue using indigo. See my natural dyeing blog for more information.

Some Bird Art


Little medallions with featuring Black Birds in Tree, alcohol inks to the left, shiva paintstiks to the right (prussian blue)


Experimenting with copic markers and gelli pens on scrap booking paper.  Barely noticeable at the bottom are three of the washi tapes I purchased last weekend.  This will probably end up as the cover for my "new to me" journal.  Crow is from my Three Crows Stencil.

More birds to come, I'm working on a major project (all new work for an upcoming solo show) the big reveal will happen and soon, until then here's my latest samples to see how the various mediums work with the stencils.

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!

Auditioning Fabrics





Found some folded points, etc., in a box of vintage fabrics I picked up along the way and am now auditioning them to use in an upcoming body of work. I think I may rust dye some of the red and white gingham as it's too clean and too cheerful.  

The netting and metallic mesh was in a box on my shelf. 

Mending


A bundle of sleeves.


For some reason the first wife's mother kept the sleeves from several shirts, I unrolled the bundle today (What you think I'd throw away all of those textile treasures??? Bite your tongue!) mostly because this bit of madras type fabric was peaking out, looking all spring like.



Love the way she butted the torn edges together, adding some matching threads and stitched them together with the skill of a surgeon!


  Imagine my joy when I discovered that it had been mended, and in several places.