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.

Photo of The Week

We’ve been enjoying the cherries!

Oh No, It’s Love Again

I have been packaging some photography that I have for sale.  I thought  it would be a good  idea to trace over some interesting shapes and lines in these photos before I sealed them in their sleeves.  With these pencil tracings on tracing paper, I can flip them over and RUB the tracing onto the very inexpensive product called Foamies.  Now Foamies makes their own shapes and sells them complete with adhesive on the back so you can make stamps, but I prefer to be more original and adventurous so I made mine from the plain sheets of foam and cut out my own shapes from a drawing or the shapes from my photographs.  The exciting thing about this type of stamp is that you can press into it with a pencil and create wonderful details…or not, as the case may be.  Your image can be as basic and primitive as you like it or more detailed.

Who doesn’t from time to time need the image of  part of an old building that looks like it is on a slope?

I take photographs of old barns and sheds with all of the lines of slats they have.  For instance…

…from this photo, I made a tracing of the doorway in the lower right hand corner, pressed it onto the foam, cut it out, and made pencil marks on the lines of the slats…

…to make this stamp

Results?

More stamps from drawings.

Distress ink is too wet and doesn’t stamp really well unless you want that kind of look.

You can create positive or negative images.  Foamies sheets are very useful tools.

Thursday Goings On….

So sorry I haven’t blogged for awhile.  It’s hard to write two blogs…especially if you want to write something thoughtful yet entertaining.

So, today, after my walk and my visit to my hair girl, photographing silk scarves was on my agenda as well as photographing a new large piece for entry into an area exhibit.  Well, the wind is just a little bit too strong to get much photography done.  I tried.  When I photograph, I like to open up my garage door and set up everything just inside the garage.  It gives me plenty of light, but not too much.  I even had a backdrop set up with my gridwall and a black sheet.  The wind was just too frustrating, but here’s a pic of one of the scarves.

Silk habatoi is the only kind of silk I have dyed that gets this wonderful kind of movement in the dyes.  I guess it’s because of its thinness.  I really like it and these are the scarves that sell the quickest for me.  This scarf is $40 and is 14″ x 72″ before shrinkage.

I was looking at an application for a regional exhibit coming up.  I need to get it  and digital images in really soon.  I see in the rules that purchase award winnners will be asked to relinquish copyrights to their work.  I am wondering if this is a good thing to do or not?  And if you enter you are asked to sign a statement on the application to this effect, so it’s not something I can decide later.  How do others feel about this?

I sold a quilt this weekend at the farmer’s market.  It wasn’t an art quilt, per se.  I had been dragging it around with me for years, using it to cover a table or fill in a space in my quilt show booth.  I’m a bit sorry to see it go since my favorite longarmer who doesn’t quilt any more quilted it.  But I’m really glad to pocket the money!

I also went to visit the gallery I will be showing in…in 2011 (lots can happen between now and then).  I wanted to see how much space I will be  expected to fill.  I have some ideas percolating now for small pieces.

What’s everyone else doing for the summer?

Creativity…Inspired!

Aha!  I just found another way to inspire creativity.  If you can’t get to an art exhibit for real…go visit Ragged Cloth Cafe.  I haven’t taken the time to get over there for awhile.  Wow.  I was just there and now I’m pumped and writing down notes and ideas.  There are some wonderful new posts over there. I saw something on tv yesterday and was thinking about photographing it, but photos of the television screen do not normally come out well, so I have committed it to memory and would like to create it.

Oh yeah, another thing I did this morning is take a few pictures of some textures and items I found interesting.  Here’s one for your viewing pleasure and inspiration. (pssst…The flowers are fake, but pretty nonetheless.)

Seeing…Where It All Begins

I have been reading Betty Edwards’ book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, as I have mentioned in previous posts. She says that learning to draw is not so much about drawing, but about seeing. She writes extensively about how to turn off the left brain dominance and make a shift to the right brain creative mode. The exercises in the book are there to help make this happen. I find it interesting how one can start to “see” things even when they are not expecting it.

For instance, my husband and I made a trip home for the 4th of July. I was talking on the phone when he pulled into the parking lot of the Dairy Queen in McLeansboro. I thought he had to use the restroom and he never said anything to me as he exited the car. While I was waiting, I began to “see” the side of a building in front of me. I think my mind made the shift to the right brain. Wow! There were some awesome markings. I got my camera out and started snapping pictures. I found watermarks and pitmarks on the building. I just kept shooting anything I thought I might find interesting, because you just never know.

Here are the markings that caught my attention:

This building with the blue doors also intrigued me, so I took a few pics of it too.

I think it’s time to get a new Thermofax screen order ready. I am loving buildings.

For most of my adult life, I have been a bit of a photography bug. Perhaps that’s why I went to x-ray school…to take pictures! But I’ve traded all that in now for a more artistic and interesting picture-taking experience. I love my digital camera.

Ahhhhh….Spring….

I printed this out on photo paper, 8 x 10 inch. This is my blooming Bradford pear. What an awesome picture. Digital cameras are the best, don’t ya’ think? The 8 x 10 looks like a painting!