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Archive for the ‘painting fabric’ Category

Missing, But Not in Action

Tuesday, February 17th, 2015

purpleviolets

My life was rudely interrupted this past week-end when I started having excruciating pain in my left knee to the point that I could barely walk.  I finally had Mr C take me to urgent care on Sunday when he got home from church. The Dr. I saw thought it was a lateral collateral ligament sprain. I had xrays done and they fitted me with a neoprene knee stabilizer.

bionicknee

The worst problem I had over the past two days was sleeping. I could not get comfortable and would sleep for 2 or 3 hours and then wake up in pain that made me cry. I would get up and walk up and down the hall and go back to bed and sleep for another short spurt etc. I was wearing the knee stabilizer as prescribed.

Today, I saw the Orthopedic doctor who looked at my xrays from 2 years ago and compared them with the new ones and declared that I have an “enraged” arthritic knee. You could see a big difference. I was relieved that it was not a ligament problem, but sad to know that my knee is wearing out. He said that I am a candidate for a knee replacement at some point.

I stopped wearing the knee stabilizer and feel better already. The pressure points that help to stabilize a torn ligament wear pressing on the arthritic bone spurs and making me feel worse!!

I am a couple of days behind schedule but I can catch up!! As you can see, I got the purple painting done. I also finished the yellows.

yellows

I got the final cuts and prints made for my reduction printing class.

reductprint3

reductprintfinalThat last layer was not registered very well, but I did it on Saturday when I was in pain from the knee!!

I am taking a Photoshop elements online workshop with the Pixel Ladies. Here is an example of something I did in the first week. I altered the tulip photo.

tulips

 

You can see that I cleaned up the background and altered the color. I am learning a lot. I am basically self-taught and this is really helping me.

tulipsphotoaltered

Wordless Wednesday

Wednesday, February 11th, 2015

WW 02-11-15

Painting Update and a Winner

Monday, February 9th, 2015

02-09-15dropcloth

I love how my drop cloth is looking. I think I will need to turn this into something really cool when I am done. Since my last post, I have painted blues and orange/earth tones.

bluepaintedsilk

orange-earthtonepaintedsilk

I love the blues, but I really love the earth tones. I am so happy with it. I hope when it dries, it looks as good. I have gotten into a rhythm of painting 6 ft of silk, letting it dry over night, painting a small test piece for the next color way and then going back the next day and painting another large piece. I just have yellows and purples to go.

I am making progress on Clay’s cowl. I have about 20 rows to go and they get shorter as I go as I am knitting the wedge and every other row gets reduced by 5 stitches. I love the texture that comes from the garter stitch cables.

claycowlupdate

 

Now, for the winner:

Screenshot 2015-02-09 21.38.12

 

Thanks to all of you who left me such nice comments. The random number generator selected 13 which means Kay Taylor is the winner of my little Aspen piece. E-mail me your snail mail address at gerrie@gericondesigns.com.

Painting (But Not Seeing) Red

Thursday, February 5th, 2015

salteffectonpaint

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.

minigreenpiece

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

paintsetup

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.

redpaintedsilk

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.

reductionprint1

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

reductionprint2

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.

Let’s Celebrate 10 Years of Blogging!!

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2015

greensilk2

Believe it or not, I have hung in here for 10 years, blabbing away about my life and my art. To celebrate, I am giving one of my small mounted aspen pieces to one of you, if you leave me a comment.

First, I want to tell you about my great day. I finally started painting the silk fabric for my solo show. I am doing six different 6+ foot pieces. I was able to get a set-up in my little studio where I could paint fabric that long.

silkpaintingsetup

I putted a long padded surface over my stainless steel printing table and my cutting table. I also have a couple of smaller tables on which I have my paint and brushes. It is a tight squeeze, but very doable.

I first painted a small sample with the colors I wanted to use.

I cut a length of silk about 6 1/2 feet. It is folded in half and pinned around the edges with small t-pins.

stretchingsilk

I started painting with foam brushes and Jacquard Dyna-flow paint.

greensilk1

I sprinkled some salt on the blue area.

greensilksalted

I left it to dry and will go back tomorrow. My plan is to do 6 colorways: green, blue, yellow, orange, red, purple. I will cut each piece in half lengthwise. I will do some more surface design on these fabrics. One half will be cut up and turned into small pieces mounted on gallery frames. The remaining long piece will hang as art cloth as a center piece for each color. I have been dreaming and scheming about this for so long. It is exciting to get started.

OK, if you made it to the end of this, don’t forget to leave me a comment and I will use the random number generator and one of you will get this little piece.

Aspen8inch