Category: photography

August This N’ That

Summer is winding down…it’s August already.   It has gone by quickly.

Along with leaving town a couple of times, working to have items ready for the artisans/farmer’s market each weekend, and now produce coming in from the garden, a girl has to work hard at getting quality time making art.  I have an exhibit to hang in October…!

I have been working on some new work and last week saw me spending a lot of time just doing art.  “Composition” is a new series I am working on.  It is mixed media work and I am enjoying it immensely.  I am having loads of fun using paint, ink and pastels to create on paper and cloth.

Composition - collaged base of paper and cloth, gesso, acrylic paint, oil pastels, ink paper

There are more coming in this series and manner of working.  These measure approximately 15″ square.  Work is also proceeding on a larger piece using discharged black cotton sateen and a rust dyed cotton feed sack.

Scarlet and I have started working on Christmas ornaments for the gallery gift shop.  Mine will mostly be mixed media and made of papers.  They are started but there is much to be done before they are ready for display.

New journal covers I have been creating this summer are photos printed on cotton. Oh, look…one of them is the new artwork, Composition.

I have a couple of shows I will be working in September.  See my events tab (above) to see where I will be.  October will be the time I am finishing up everything for my exhibit in New Harmony, IN.

Well, I guess it’s time to get back to my other work now….

New Series in Paper

Last week I was working on getting some things ready to sell.  I often do events in New Harmony, IN  and have a lot of photographs from that historic tourist town.  I decided to start a series of collages from photographs that might be appealing to visitors to the area.

Stories of New Harmony:  Brick, log cabins mixed with modernity.

Stories of New Harmony #1
Stories of New Harmony #2
Stories of New Harmony #3
Stories of New Harmony #4
Stories of New Harmony #5
Stories of New Harmony #6
Stories of New Harmony #7

Thermofax Screens

I had a commenter ask about where to get Thermofax screens made, so I decided to just do a post about it.

Thermofax screens are awesome to use if you don’t want to mess with the photo emusion process on silkscreens.  They are great to use to make prints on cloth or paper with your own photography.  I turn my photos into black and white and then darken the black as much as I can.  The copies of these need to be toner copies when you send them off for making Thermofax screens.  HOWEVER, I have an Epson CX4800 printer that uses Durabright inks.  Believe it or not, I accidentally send these prints to my screen maker and she was able to make screens that work perfectly from them, SO that means that the Durabright black ink has enough toner in them to burn a screen with.  I was amazed.  But for most of you out there using an inkject printer, this won’t work.  You need copies with toner in the ink, either from a laser printer or a copy machine.  I hear the copy machines with toner are getting rare.

So here is the list of people that I know from the quiltart list who make Thermofax screens for a small fee.  Get in touch with them!  Your other option is to spend tons of money purchasing one of the old machines that does this and spending money on supplies for it.  I find it easier just to make my designs or prepare my photos and just send them off to these gals.

Pam Relitz is in the Chicago area:        rockitz@tds.net

Bobbie Vance is in the Indianapolis area:    fiberartbv@aol.com

Lynn Krawczyk, I believe is in Michigan:   tatgirl207@earthlink.net

Construction fence rubbing

7/26/11 Update…I just received a comment asking to add this link to my list of Thermofax screen makers: http://www.northwoodstudios.us/screen_making_services.html

Check them out!

New Product Time

I recently ordered some of Lesley Riley’s TAP Transfer Artist Paper.  I have been wanting to try this for some time.  It is wonderful and I love it.  It transfers beautifully.

Here is my first sample.  There will be more.  I used a little play on words…

This is a color transfer…I did not color it with pencils or anything.

I have some for sale…contact me if you are interested.  There are 5 sheets in the pack for $13, full instructions and a sheet of silicone release paper.

In other news, I have been cleaning up my workspace in the garage, cleaning out the fridge and trying to use up dyes before they get too old.  I dyed several yards of stuff and then discharged some designs on the black.  I found out there was lots of green in that black dye.  The big circle stamp is my new favorite thing to stamp with.

I discovered I could set the white balance on this camera according to the kind of light I am shooting in.  Holly Knott has a great tutorial on her blog about shooting your own work.  It is well worth reading, especially if you can’t take it to a photographer and need to photograph your own art.  Read it here.

I couldn’t resist ordering wool roving in my last order and have been playing at felting beads. Aren’t they cute?  Pretty easy and fun to make.

Tuesday is election day.  I will be working as a judge doing my civic duty and guarding the integrity of our elections.

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Blooming Peonies…

My white peonies are blooming.  They always start blooming before the pink ones do.  I don’t know why..does anyone out there know why?  I love to go out and cut both colors and bring into the house.  They have a wonderful smell.

DSC04597

Before opening….

DSC04596

…yeah, I know they look pink, but trust me…they will open up white with just a tinge of pink blush.  The pink ones are really PINK when they open.

“My” Picasso…

I finally figured out how to make the center image smaller in this photoshopped image.  It actually wasn’t as hard as I thought.  I had to do some reading on the reflection tool  🙂  (If all else fails, read the directions.)

socialsecuritysigndistort_edited-3

FYI this was done using the Distort filter, Liquify function, and the reflection tool. I think it is much better now.

And BTW, a friend called me while I was in Paducah and said she loves this image and wanted a copy of it, so I guess you could say I have “sold” my first copy of this image.  (Even though I’m not charging her for it–she didn’t necessarily want it in cloth.)