I am working today making more bags…just two more festivals to go and then maybe I can “rest” a little. Ha!
But I also took a little time for play…
This is a fat quarter of black cotton sateen. I waxed it, then crinkled it, then brushed automatic dishwashing gel on it. I’m thinkin’ I’m in love…
This is probably my most favorite dessert ever. It’s a Fudge Brownie Trifle, but I take it a step further and make it a Black Forest Brownie Trifle with the addition of cherry pie filling. There is more whipped cream to go on top but since I need to be able to put a cover on the bowl, I will put that on when I get to the ladies meeting tonight.
On working…Ever have one of those days where, you want to work, you know you need to work, to make art, you push yourself to do it…and the magic just isn’t there? You wander from idea to idea…and nothing comes together. That happened to me yesterday. I sorta kinda didn’t feel real well, so I gave up and curled up on the couch for the afternoon. But later…
On the art front, there is an arts council members exhibit coming up. I have a piece I thought I could put in the exhibit…but upon reading the guidelines, they are limiting size to 30″ x 32″, so that means I have to make something new because almost everything else I have, has been in an arts council exhibit. AND it can’t take a long time to make, so “minimal” will be my theme. I like big blocks of color and came up with this last night. I am going to use the full size allowance (I decided why not?), so it will be exactly 30″ x 32″. Quilting lines in thick black thread to come. So basically, it will be about color and lines. The black and white stripe fabric is a screenprint from a soy wax design. The colors should shake things up a bit in the exhibit. There are a lot of painters in the arts council who do very nice representational landscapes and still lifes.
I made some batik scarves yesterday. I used soy wax on these, but am wondering if flour paste would be good to use. I may have to try it, but if anyone reading this has any thoughts about it, let me know in the comment section. I do like the crackly lines.
I am also trying out some new types of silk from what I have worked on in the past. I really love the flat crepe, the silk satin and the silk charmeuse. I think the charmeuse is basically silk satin with a crepe backing on it, thereby making it a heavier scarf. So this has been an interesting learning experience. Tomorrow I will be putting these scarves out at the artisan’s festival. I am always interested in customer response when I have something different to offer at shows.
This piece was done by stamping soy wax onto white cotton with a potato masher and the lid of a film canister. Then I brushed turquoise and black dye paint on it making sure to get in all the little cracks and crevices. I think I am going to brush other colors over the white areas.
For this design, I tore strips of freezer paper and ironed them to the back side of a screen. Again, I used turquoise and black paint.
This is a screened design made with soy wax. I used yellow and fuchsia dye, and also picked up some turquoise paint from the table. These three fabrics all go together now. I will have to be careful what other colors I add to the first one!
This one is made with the same torn paper screen, except that after printing the design in one direction, I turned the screen and printed it in the other direction too. Looks like I used yellow and black dyes, maybe some turquoise. The next one was done the same way, except with more turquoise and some fuchsia paint.
….Yummmm….black sateen is so nice. I was told by a fellow artist that the black sateen that Joann’s carries discharged to whites and greys….not so! Maybe it did at one time, but not anymore.
I went outside early this morning to do some discharge. Early…meaning I waited til daylight and went out about 7 a.m. By 8 a.m. I was dripping with sweat so I quit for the day. But I remembered that I wanted to do a screen design with dishwashing liquid. Well…now I’m hooked! Gotta get some more sateen!
Black cotton sateen discharged by screening automatic dishwashing liquid through screen with soy wax design.
paint rag with hand stamping
paint rag with soy wax screen design
construction fence stencil
this reminds me of rain in a forest
shibori-with two knots tied in it
paint rag with soy wax screened design...I could do this all day long.
Yesterday was my husband’s birthday. He turned 49 and I made him a New York cheesecake. I haven’t made one of those in years…too much fat! Even though I used the 1/3 less fat cheese and low fat sour cream it’s still a lot of fat. Then I quilted the Rosa and Friends sample and put binding on. Well, that part is over. Now I just have to get fabrics dyed for the kits. I was going to dye on Tuesday, but a water main was broken and we had no water all day.
On Saturday I am doing a presentation called All That Jazz at Sew Tech. They asked me to do a trunk show as well as show quilts for classes that I teach and my hand dyed fabrics. I will also do a small demonstration of a technique. I plan to visit Dick Blick and Joann’s while I am in Evansville.
Not much else going on as I have lately been spending so much time on this sample. I have to get in gear and start working on pieces that I want to put in the textile exhibit next month. I have less than a month to go before everything is to be delivered to the gallery.
Some pulls from a soy wax screen. I love using soy wax! These were printed on the back of fabrics that had gesso and paint applied. The white areas are from the gesso.
Ever have a period of days where you feel like you are just messing up everything? That’s how my week feels so far. And yesterday I said I was looking forward to a productive week…that was before I washed out my dye painted silk scarves and found they were much too light. I was dyeing the way I thought someone said on a list, but I must have missed some things or totally misunderstood what they were saying. They will have to be done over. Then today, determined to get back to work on the kits for Rosa and Friends (see post here) and finish them, I attempted some discharged black cotton this morning. Evidently, my dishwashing detergent is too old, because that didn’t work either, and they will have to be discharged again. And these were fairly large pieces. Sheesh…maybe I’ll just go back to bed! And both days it was hot and sweaty to be outdoors. I feel like I am getting nothing done this week! I hate it when this happens. Well, one bright spot in the week…I made this piece of cloth yesterday that I think turned out pretty cool…the only thing wrong with it is that it is a really cheap thin piece of fabric!
Previously painted with red, yellow and blue Dyna-Flow paint, I screened (soy wax design) it with Lumiere pearl turquoise and black Setacolor paints. It looks very rich in person.
Thanks to Patty Van Huis-Cox’s blog, I found my way over to another blog by Susan Lenz. Susan has a bunch of ATC’s and postcards that she is trading for. After looking them over for a couple of days I plunged in and picked one here. My only problem now is….what will I send her? She is going to be displaying these at a South Carolina gallery in January 2009. Gotta get to work!
Soy wax design screened with inks on cotton.
