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Archive for the ‘studio’ Category

Dyeing – Week 2

Monday, January 18th, 2016

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This week, we are doing gradations of the primaries – sun yellow, fuchsia and turquoise. I did a full 8 gradation of yellow because I use it quite a bit. I only did 3 gradations of the fuchsia and turquoise.

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I used plastic baggies for these.

I also did a blue gradation using Elizabeth’s divisive method: which involves beginning with all the concentrate at once, and then gradually reducing the amount of dye concentrate you pour over the fabric. These are still needing soda ash.

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Tomorrow, I will do the high water version to get a solid color – you can add salt to the water to help the process.

I broke down and bought a small fridge on Amazon. It arrived packed in 3 boxes and some stryrofoam. It was a comedy of errors watching us unpack it. I need to keep my dye concentrates cold and since I turn up the heat in the studio to batch my dyes, it was a necessity!

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I also finished the brown sweater set for my hair stylist’s baby boy, who is a red head.

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Painting (But Not Seeing) Red

Thursday, February 5th, 2015

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Someone asked about the salt on the painted fabric. Here is the fabric after I removed the salt. I think what it does is attract paint to the area causing little dots and ripples. I wanted this area to look water-like. Mission accomplished.

I ironed and heat set the green piece and am quite happy with the results. Here is the small sample I did. You can see how the paint flows through to the other side so you can easily paint two pieces of fabric at one time.

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I thought I would show you my set up for painting in my small studio space.

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On the right is my paint caddy. On the left is a small table with my brushes and containers. There is just about enough room for me to stand between them and the surface holding the fabric, but it works and I am so enjoying the process.

Today was red day, but I wanted to incorporate some of my happy colors with the red.

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The edges soften and blend as the paint dries and then I will be adding some printing and gold foil to this. It was a dark, dreary, rainy day today and it was so nice to paint with these colors.

Remember my carved block from my reduction printing class? Last night I inked the back with lime green and printed a nice rectangle.

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Then, I flipped it over and inked the carved side with red.

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I am now carving marks on the block where you see the solid red. Then, next week, I will print in another color, etc.

Comments on my 10th blogiversary post are still dribbling in so I think I will wait until Monday to select the winner. I appreciate all your comments.

Oops! I Forgot to Blog…

Sunday, January 25th, 2015

onefootfigure

It has been a busy week! I had a SAQA meeting on Wednesday and lots of SDA work. Here is an update on the drawing class. We had our last session this week and he showed us how to draw the whole body and show different postures. Drawing a skellie first can help you get the right angles on the body parts. For instance, the above drawing was taken from this skellie.

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Did you know that the perfect proportioned body is 8 heads tall, but most of us are 7 – 7 1/2. The torso is two heads, the pelic area is one head and the legs are 4 heads. So you can take a piece of paper and divide it into 8 portions to draw your pefect human specimen. The photo’s perspective is off because the drawing was on the table.

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Another interesting fact is that an infant is 3 heads tall. Many paintings of babies have the head too small. As a child grows, the number of heads change. We also practiced other figure positions. This one is supposed to be standing on his right foot.

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Here is another figure that I did.

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I doubt that I will be doing a lot of figure drawing, but I so enjoyed this process.  It has made me look at figures in paintings with a whole new eye. Next week, we start reduction printing. I am going to assist the teacher. I hope I get to participate, too.

I was able to get to the studio one day and made a lot of progress getting the fabric stash under control. I also painted some silk samples. I think I am going to paint silk for my solo show instead of dyeing. I worry about the cool weather and getting the depth of color that I want. I used Jacquard’s Dynaflow paint on silk charmeuse and silk/cotton blend. I decided that I like the heavier weight charmeuse best. It is on the second fabric, below.

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So, today, I ordered 15 yards of silk charmeuse from Dharma and copious amounts of Dynaflow paint. I can’t wait until it gets here.

Thursday was Mr C’s 75th birthday. On Friday night we went out with Jack and Steph to a marvelous French restaurant in our neighborhood where we had a most excellent meal. Then we had birthday cheesecake back at The Congdo with M & M. It is always fun to catch up with these two and hear how well they are doing in school and life.

My new glasses came in early and I must say, they have really made a difference. So  happy to be done with the eye strain and headaches. Who knew?? LOL

Yesterday, Terry Grant and I drove south about an hour and so to see the Stitches in Bloom show at the Oregon Garden. We both had work in the show. It was an interesting show with art quilts and traditional quilts sharing the same crowded space. There were quite a few vendors selling quilt fabric and notions. We had a nice lunch at the resort restaurant and then listened to a lecture by Cynthia Corbin from the Seattle area. I so love her work. Click here for a look at her website, if you are not familiar with her work. She has great sense of humor, too. I am looking forward to her workshop with the guild in March.

Here is a blurry photo of my leaf quilt at the show.

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It was a beautiful day to drive through the bucolic Oregon countryside. We saw Mt. Hood showing itself in all different directions.

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My goal for tomorrow is to do some more work in the studio and quilt my January EB piece.

 

A Busy Week

Thursday, May 22nd, 2014

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I didn’t realize that a week had gone by and I only posted Wordless Wednesday. I am a bad blogger. But, I have been very busy. We had the opening of the New Heaven, New Earth show last Friday. Here are my two pieces in the show.

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We had a good turn out at the reception and have sold a few pieces of art. We gave a Genisis award for best interpretation of the theme. It was won by a quilter from Montana who used to be a member of Trinity and comes back in the spring to be in this show.

On Saturday night, we went to a gala dressup fundraiser dinner for an organization that provides quality experiences, such as summer camp, for abused children — Sparks for Hope. We were invited to be at a table put together by one of Steve’s former co-workers. I was thrilled to be able to get into the dress I bought for Lisa and Clay’s wedding. Speaking of which, how great is it that gay marriage is no longer banned in Oregon! State by state, we are winning.

Sunday, I took part in a forum at Trinity. The artists in the show talked about our inspiration and other things. I also sat at the show on Sunday afternoon and got a sale, just as I was packing up!

I have spent a bunch of time getting my studio set up. Almost there! Today, I wrangled four 2 foot by 4 foot insulation panels and taped them together and covered them with flannel to make a 4 x 8 design wall. It was a bit hysterical as my studio is not that big so there is no place to lay stuff on the floor. I guess I could have gone out in the hall!!

The photo at the top is of my tjaps and printing blocks on display in front of my encaustic experiments. I have utilized the back of the door for some hanging storage.

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We also put up lots of shelves for storing stuff where I can see it.

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I have also been to a couple of meetings this week — High Fiber Diet on Tuesday night and SAQA on Wednesday, followed by lunch with a group of friends.

We continue to get the condo in order. I hung a bunch of quilts and other art in the hallway and bedroom

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I hung Motherlode in the entry way and realized it has the complete color palette of our new home!

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One of my aspen quilts graces the hallway.

I also hung some of my work in the bedroom

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We bought a nice little glass topped desk at Crate and Barrel for my desktop computer. It is a lovely place to work and look out on nature. It is in the bedroom.

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This is the really cool walnut dresser that we found when we went on our hunt for Midcentury Modern furniture.

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That wall needs some more art, don’t you think?

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Our chandelier arrived this week, too. And with much ado, we got it installed.

Today, we walked up to the Rose Garden from our home. It is a good hike — straight up — but it only takes about 15 minutes to get there. Portland is known as the Rose City and the rose Festival is happening, soon. Here are some photos. The first is a view of  Big Pink from the garden.

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Walking home is a breeze because it is down hill most of the way.

 

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Happy Solstice!

Saturday, December 21st, 2013

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I love both the winter and the summer solstice. Today brings the promise of the return of more light. The summer solstice is the celebration of the longest day of light.

I got so much done in the last couple of days, even though they were short on daylight. Yesterday, I embellished a little jean’s jacket for Paige. My sister-in-law in CA thrifted it for me. It is a size 2 toddler so she may need to grow into it. I put it and a few other things in the mail to her yestereday. Here is the front. Not terribly inspired, but it will be unique.

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I want to thank all of you who helped me destash my studio. I only have 3 bundles left! I might add some hand-dyes and some inexpensive scrap bundles later. Today, I printed all the labels and packaged up the goodies and dropped them off at the Post Office. You should receive your fabric a day or two after Christmas. Here is what I delivered to the PO this morning.

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Then, I went to work on de-personalizing our home to prepare it for selling to someone else. First, I took down my cross collection – didn’t want to scare off a potential buyer! I also packed up all the family photos from several different rooms. I got a bit weepy as I saw the transformation happening, but it will all be good when I can put every thing back in a new home!

Then, I scooted down to the studio and spent some time locating some of my tools and thermofax screens in the storage room. I need to print a fat quarter to go in The Printed Fabric Bee fabric pack for Virginia Spiegel’s 5 K to Fight Cancer. I wanted to discharge a pattern on a hand-dyed fabric, hoping the turquoise would remain where I discharged. I couldn’t find my Soft Scrub so I ran out to buy a new bottle. I wanted to use one of my favorite old screens with wonky lines. You can see where the softscrub is on the fabric.

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Unfortunately, this Soft Scrub did not have enough chlorine to discharge the dye. So, I just have a very clean piece of fabric. I will try again with discharge paste, if I can find it!! Or maybe, I will screen on paint. That would probably be easiest.