Experimenting


Stenciling on natural dyed (tea and coffee) fabric.


I'm using purple and yellow acrylic paints and a stencil brush.




This while waiting for the screen printing supplies to arrive.  The bulb in my thermofax machine died and is no longer available, so on the advice of some trusted artist friends I've purchased Jacquards drawing fluid and filler to make silk screen designs.  The upside to this is I'll have large screens for screen printing natural dyes onto the cloth.

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!


Circles and Computers


I've been dealing with computer issues the past several days, to the point that when the dsl mysteriously shut off last night at 9pm I started to feel as if I was a dog chasing it's own tail!


So while grousing about all of the computer issues and my dislike of Centurylink, our internet provider, I painted some circles onto painted timtex with acrylic inks and paints.


It took three plus hours on the phone this afternoon, with Centurylink, to get the whole mess sorted out but as you can see we now have internet service again.


And I painted three small panels with circles, and this piece of watercolor paper also saw some circles.

Probably the most interesting accomplishment was the three thousand word short story I wrote up while waiting on the phone with Centurylink!  I'll rewrite it this week, give it a good polishing, and post it to my blog sometime next weekend.  It's a modern take on a mythological story.


Experiments in Malachite


Working on some nummies with watercolors, inks, and golden's fluid acrylic paints.  Crow is from my stencil collection through StencilGirl Products!


As I said earlier I totally forgot that I had the watercolor crayons so I broke them out and started making some color palettes with the various crayons to see what colors will work in an upcoming series of one offs.  I'm loving the blues and greens for sure with malachite being my favorite thus far.

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.

Patternless Skirt


Almost finished, the waste band and hem are next.


Natural, Indigo, and Rust dyed cotton muslin fabric.


It should have taken 45 minutes to construct from start to finish but since I accidentally sewed it together (wrong sides) twice it took about two hours!  So I decided I'll finish the waste band tomorrow and think about how I want to finish the hem.

Journal Pages and Stencils


From this...

To this...

I played around in a handmade journal this evening with my new paints, oil bars, and inks and my Black Birds in Tree and Three Crows Stencils.  Tomorrow I will finish out these pages after the oil bar dries.

Paints used:
Matisse Flow
Golden Fluid Acrylics

Inks used:
Daler-Rowney FW inks
Liquidtex inks

Oil bars used:
Shiva Paintstiks
Shiva Paintstiks Metallics

Why I don't Eco-Dye My Fabric

Why I don’t Eco-Dye Fabric
I do, however, dye, paint, and print, my fabric with natural dyes.

Photo courtesy of the Main Street Cultural District Ames, Iowa.

I participated in a local art walk last Friday and after three hours of questions about my natural dyed scarves, artwork, etc., I am once again reminded as to why I don’t call myself an eco-dyer, for the most part nobody is interested in the craft of eco-dyeing! 
While most people play lip service to protecting the environment, sustainability, fair trade practices, and all things “green” the fact of the matter is when most people found out that I was using tree bark, mushrooms, leaves, bugs, and other stuff to dye my art cloth the response was an overwhelming “that’s nice” or “that’s really cool”.  "That’s nice" is the kiss of death, it's the Mid westerners version of “so what” or “who cares”!

The whole experience solidified in my mind what I already knew, while there are some that are truly concerned about the environment and sustainability, the majority only cares if it saves them a buck or two.  Which leads me back to why I don’t eco-dye my fabric, fibers, and threads, but in fact dye them with Natural Dyes, to me it’s about the process and the relationships I form with other dyer’s, and most importantly with nature that surrounds and inspires me. 

Natural dyed silk scarves.

For me the process is not about immediate gratification, but about discovery, learning, exploring, and most importantly relationships.  Unless a local woodworker gifts me a bag of wood chips from their dust collection system or from their lathe turnings, the wood, barks, and roots I use to create my designs are collected over a period of years, often time’s decades. 

My finished artwork was a hit with everyone with plenty of people telling me they’d love to be able to stitch and sew like I do and do I teach classes?  The evening wasn't a total bust, I got plenty of hits from women of all ages that are interested attending a stitching party; the older women of course were very excited about the wine aspect of said parties. 

Click here to learn more about eClasses, Workshops, and my newest offering Out of the Box Art Parties!

Done is Betther than Perfect?

Lynn Krawczyk asked this question on her blog this morning and my response was:

"Perfection is an addiction to disappointment"










I used to get myself wound up and pretty tightly over my work an wanting it to be perfect, now not so much.  One of the things I've come to realize is that once a piece is done if I don't like it a year later it's ok to change the work or even destroy it, but by striving for perfection I would never finish the piece. 


We can remain stuck and live with continual disappointment or we can move forward declare it done and create more works of art.

Studio Purge and Color Wheels



On Purging and Creating: I decided to take the month of June off from creating, etc., with the exception of the Art Walk here in Ames on June 6th, to focus on paring down my studio.  I've already started lining up local artists that are interested in my excess fabric, wool and silk fibers, oh and the yarn!  I have to say it's exciting, very exciting.

I had hit the wall and that wall was I cannot create anymore until I get rid of the excess in my studio it is weighing me down.  So out it goes so that I can move forward with my new Canyonland Series, and my collections for licensing.

Watercolor on Bristol board with Sumi Brush

On Color Wheels:  I love certain colors, and I tend to work ONLY with those colors in my work.  After twenty years of producing work I've decided that this is ok and these are my signature colors.  So I've been busy making color wheels in watercolor, acrylic paint, and with natural dyes, and how I achieved those colors so that they are repeatable.


On Planning:  Something I got from Lisa Call a couple of weeks ago that has lit a fire under my can is this:  "Planning is Defining the Dream!"  I started working on my business plan again, laying out the road map to where I want to go and have began planning how I want/hope to get there, and doing so has lit a new fire within me.

Deconstructed Screen Printing with Natural Dyes and Stencils!

Materials List: 
Silk Screens
Squeegee for Silk Screen
Stencils
Natural Dye Extracts
Gum Tragacanth Binder
Containers to hold natural dye extracts/binder I used paper cups.
Plastic Spoons
Newspaper
Masking Tape
Fabric or Watercolor Papers

Products Used:
Black Birds in Tree Inverse Stencil

Links:
How-to make the Gum Tragacanth Binder Video

I am here today to show you how to use stencils with a silk screen and natural dyes for screen printing.



Instructions:
Mix up Gum Tragacanth with Natural Dye Extracts; see video for specific amounts and mixing instructions.  I made a little card with the names of the extracts I was working with and daubed a bit of the color next to each name, for future projects.

The Natural Dye Extracts blended with the Gum Tragacanth are now ready for printing!

Most silk screens won’t be the same size as your stencil, however, I have an easy fix for this problem.   Measure your screen and your stencil and then block off the required space for your stencil by taping news print to the FRONT of your silk screen.  Then tape your stencil to the front of the screen making sure to overlap the stencil onto the newsprint.



Blocked off silk screen, as seen from the front.


Blocked off silk screen as seen from the back.


Black Birds in Tree Inverse taped to the FRONT of the silk screen.



Place your natural dye binder medium onto the screen, towards the edge, this is known as “the well”.  Using your squeegee pull the medium in a firm manner across the screen, once you have reached the other side, pull the medium back towards yourself, do this several times adding more of the natural dye binder medium if needed until the color on the screen looks even.


Gently lift up the silk screen from your substrate, I used 300# cold press watercolor paper for this sample.



For this sample I used the same stencil and screen to print the image onto cochineal dyed cotton fabric that I had surfaced using my hand and earth pigments and fabric paint.



Printing onto cochineal dyed cotton fabric.




If you wish for your fabric images to be free of bumps, etc., tape the fabric to your surface to keep it from moving, etc., while printing.  I prefer an organic and whimsical look and therefore don’t tape my fabric to my table.

Oliver Files: After the Storm


Oliver and his ball.  We experienced a large amount of hail today, golf ball sized hail and discovered Oliver is scared of hail!

Excuse the mess this is the "nest" he made today between the dining and family rooms, he's a very busy dog that loves to build nests and each nest requires shredded paper.  Yes he has a crate and a blanket for his crate but nothing rocks his world more than a fresh nest!


The hail was about the size of grapes when it first started falling.