Approachable Art

Off the Print Table Fabric Blog Hop And Giveaway

2012-01-27T08:00:00.000-06:00

Yep, another wonderful giveaway!!

My dear friend and fellow printmaking obsessee, Lynn Krawczyk, has a new venture- she's turning her own magnificent surface designs into fabric that we can all purchase by the fat quarter or by the yard! Here's what she has to say about this exciting new line of fabrics and about the fabric giveaway she's hosting.

"I never feel more connected to my art than when I print my ownfabric. The only down side to it is that I often find myself wishing I had thespace to print yardage and to duplicate the ones that I fall madly in lovewith. Now with Spoonflower I can!

And not only that, I can make it available for anyone else whofinds it interesting and inspiring! There’s no better way to celebrate theopening of a new shop than to do a giveaway, and not only ONE giveaway, but FIVE!

Go take a visit to my Spoonflower shop and pick out which print you like best. Leave acomment on this blog post and you’ll be in the winning to win a free fatquarter of the one you chose. Easy! And make sure you visit all the blogs onthe blog hop for a better chance to win!"

Blog Hop Schedule

Mon Jan 23 - Lynn Krawczyk

http://fibraartysta.blogspot.com

Tues Jan 24 - Jo James

http://thecartbeforethehorse.blogspot.com

Wed Jan 25 - Kelli Nina Perkins

http://ephemeralalchemy.blogspot.com

Thurs Jan 26 - Judy Coates Perez

http://judyperez.blogspot.com

I'll draw a name randomly from the comments on this blog post on February 3rd and if you win, Lynn will send you the fat quarter of your choice! Good luck everyone!

Stacked Journaling 101

2012-01-24T16:37:00.002-06:00

I finally took a Stacked Journaling tutorial that's been sitting on my hard drive and uploaded it as a "Page" on this blog. If you're interested in learning more about my fun and easy technique for adding your own personal stories and memories to your work, please follow this link!

Inspiration Creeps Up On Me

2012-01-23T15:25:00.003-06:00

I admit it, I find inspiration in the oddest places!

While waiting for a delivery of Paverpol so I can try more of this, I've been prepping for my upcoming 3-dimensional studies by painting deli papers of various sizes with fluid acrylic paints. Here is what's often left behind after a few days of this kind of work.

This is a sample of the inexpensive craft paper I use to protect my work surface. It's not art, not even close, and considering the papers' grainy pulp and waxy backing, it probably never will be. (It makes stupendous wrapping paper and book covers, though, so it almost never gets thrown out!) Each sheet is used until it has gaping holes in it and then I stash away what's left, tear another sheet off the roll, and start the process again. But along the way as it sits on my worktop, I find myself fascinated by what happens to the surface. Over multiple painting sessions, the colors begin to blend with one another, some behaving as resists, some maintaining the transparency of watercolors. Sharp edges, unintentional smudges, and fragments of Stacked Journaling all build, layer on layer, finding depth and movement all on their own by happy accident.

In an effort to try and direct this process more intentionally, to guide it without killing the serendipity that creates such lovely intersections of design, I decided to cut a 30" x 30" piece of multi-purpose fabric and use it for a while, instead of the craft paper, as my work surface.

With a 4" plastic putty knife, I trowled on a thin layer of Gesso just to make sure the fabric was crisply white, and laid it up under my work surface.

While it developed randomly over the next few days, I also worked into it with intention, using my paints to enhance some areas and obliterate others. Now this is not something totally new here, we've all looked down at our tarps and thought, "Wow, that looks pretty cool," but it provided a bit of fun and distraction while waiting for the Paverpol to arrive. After a while, though, I just set it aside, not understanding yet what it was trying to teach me... if anything.

Then, over the weekend, my sweetie walked past my work table, pointed casually at the canvas, and said, "I like that..." and walked on into the house.

Ok, I decided, so maybe I wasn't totally off-base after all. I brought it back and slipped it under my work surface again, figuring that at least I could study it for a few more days and see if there was a way to create a painting like this that I actually liked.

On Saturday night, it occurred to me that the sharply-defined painted corners kept snagging my attention and that I'd like to enhance them, so I drew myself a little template on a small piece of clear plastic and used it to faintly monoprint acrylic paint Stacked Journaling into the corners.

I liked the look of that, but it was too subtle, so I did a quick high-contrast study on a stretched canvas.

(detail)

Yes. I was liking the idea of high contrast SJ much better, but I still wasn't crazy in general for my first attempts. I began to doubt that I really had anything, here.

And then I noticed a plastic tarp that I had also recently been painting on. It had been covering my print table and was developing its own layer of interesting textures. I slapped it up onto the design wall.

Aha, now that was inspiring.

Going back to the drawing board, I cut a huge piece of multi-purpose fabric and started painting into it.

Ok, yeah, now I'm starting to feel it.

This piece, which is incomplete while it awaits some Stacked Journaling, is approximately 41" x 45".

The Paverpol arrives on Wednesday, so I hope to have the SJ monoprinted onto it before then!

Look for some fun news here on this blog on Friday, and in the meantime, create experimentally!

Can't Believe I Forgot!

2012-01-20T17:23:00.002-06:00

It's funny how easily you can lose track of things, isn't it? In my "multi-purpose fabric" giveaway post, I totally forgot that I had a completed project to show you, accomplished in large part because of the fabric. I'm sorry there are no process photos, I was moving too fast through the month of December to take any!

I created this fabric and paper collage by first choosing some of my painted and monoprinted Stacked Journaling deli papers. I collaged the papers together loosely, playing with them until I liked what I had, and then I measured the sides carefully at their widest points. The whole thing measured roughly 30" x 30", so I cut a piece of multi-purpose fabric to 33" x 33" and moved the papers onto it. I collaged them down with fluid matte medium, painting both the fabric and the backs of the papers with a thin layer of the medium, and being careful to squeegie out as many of the air bubbles as possible.

(detail)

When the piece dried (it took several days), I simply cut away the excess fabric from around the edges of the collage, and it was ready to be hung.

As I've said, the multi-purpose fabric doesn't fray, stretch or buckle, so the piece lays perfectly flat and has the lovely hand of old leather. The papers show no sign of wanting to peel away from the fabric, but if I was worried that they might start to lift, the paper fabric is so soft that I could easily machine or hand stitch through it.

Create with fun!

Giveaway Winner!

2012-01-19T12:40:00.002-06:00

The winner of the 1/2 yard roll of "multi-purpose fabric" is...

Karen

Congratulations!! I'll contact you to get your shipping address.

Thank you Artistic Artifacts and Roc-lon for sponsoring this giveaway!

Giveaway Time!

2012-01-17T13:56:00.003-06:00

Back in November, I mentioned that I had a fun giveaway planned for this month, and the time has come to announce it!

While attending Festival, I was introduced to Judy Gula (thank you, Carol!), owner of Artistic Artifacts. Artistic Artifacts is a shop that is aptly named, offering many unusual products as well as on-site workshops taught by some of our favorite artists, including Liz Kettle and Carol Sloan.

One of their new products, something they call, "Multi-Purpose Fabric," caught my eye in their Festival booth, and I snatched up a couple of yards. Perhaps sensing my greedy desire to experiment with it, Judy offered another half-yard to give away to my blog readers!

So, let me tell you about this very cool fabric. It's manufactured by Roc-lon, and has a lovely, soft hand and drape. It's a heavy 3-ply fabric, almost canvas-weight, but maintains its hand while you're working into it which makes it possible to stitch through even after paint has been applied!

I've experimented pretty heavily on this fabric (some of it kindly donated for that purpose by Roc-lon), using my hottest iron on it (it did really well!) and saturating it with all kinds of mediums from fluid acrylics to heavy gel mediums.

No matter what I've thrown at it, it remains perfectly flat- no wrinkles, cockles, or stretching.

It beautifully accepts a lot of drawing mediums, as well. In the piece above, after painting on the fabric, I accented the walking lady and the background with colored pencils and pastels.

(Yup, the piece above is one I showed you in this post about gel plate printing.)

I even tried my hardest to rip it (impossible!) I've painted it, collaged paper and fabric onto it, and carved it up with scissors, a rotary cutter, and a box cutter! What's really extraordinary about Multi-Purpose Fabric is that is doesn't fray, despite my best effort to make it fray.

So enough of me chattering, let's get to the giveaway!! I have a 1/2 yard to give away and all you need to do to win is respond to this blog post, telling me what you'd like to try with it! I'll announce the winner (drawn randomly) in a few days!

New Year, New Ideas

2012-01-16T10:06:00.000-06:00

I had a bit of a revelation over the holidays and it was triggered by the simplest thing- a pile of stocking-stuffers that needed to be wrapped.

Reaching for the 44" roll of wrapping paper to wrap items less than 3" in diameter, my heart sank. I do this every year, inflict these great, huge rolls of commercial wrapping paper onto the tiny little doo-dads that go into the stockings, and every year I wind up wasting paper. For a woman obsessed with all types of paper, it's sickening.

Suddenly I flashed on the dozens of deli papers I'd been covering with Stacked Journaling all year long, and realized that they offered the perfect solution- I have papers of all sizes, everything from 7"x10" up to 18"x18", so there was unlikely to be much (if any) waste. And they were all hand-decorated; what could be more perfect?

It was a lot of fun wrapping all those little gifts in my own paper and when I was finished, I had a neat little pile of colorful presents, waiting to get stuffed into the stockings. That's when it struck me- seeing the stack of gifts made me realize that those Stacked Journaling papers look fabulous in 3-D.

I'm a mixed-media artist- even though I work with many different mediums and grounds, my work is, essentially, 2-D. I've never sculpted, never even thought much about creating work that has nothing to do with wall hangings (except for a brief foray a few months ago), but all at once, I saw possibilities in that pile of colorful paper.

So I've begun very preliminary tests, experimenting with my papers. I have no idea where this might lead me- maybe to a dead end, that happens sometimes- but I wanted to document these early experiments here on my blog just in case I want to look back in a couple of years and trace the beginnings of a new idea.

Yes, right now they're just wadded up balls of paper that have been stiffened with Paverpol and nibbled into with sharp scissors. But something about the cross-section peeks into the painted paper fascinates me. This requires more study.

Create experimentally!
- Judi

More Monoprints!

2012-01-10T13:16:00.000-06:00

I've been puttering a little more with my GelliArts gel plate! How have you started your new year?

End Of The Year Fun

2011-12-31T15:46:00.000-06:00

A chance conversation on Facebook recently with one of the ladies working at Gelli Arts had me sprinting to my studio. She commented on some of my work that utilized both Styrofoam and cardboard packing materials, wondering if the imagery was created with a Gel Plate. It had not been, but what a great idea it seemed, to combine the two!

I broke out only a few supplies. still trying to hold onto my last few days of staycation. (For detailed tutorials on the uses of gel plates, take a peek at the FAQ and video as well as the wonderful blog provided by the Gelli Arts folks.)

And in case you're worried that you're ruining your Gel Plate because it looks like this...

... don't. I'm of the opinion that the more dinged up and cruddy they become, the more effective they are for mark-making. I expect that sooner or later I'll break out some sharp implements and start carving into mine, but for today, my focus was using packing materials in conjunction with gel printing.

I started with hot colors, brayering paints onto the plate and then impressing it with the packing materials before taking my prints.

To add more contrast, I over-printed with white.

I used both lightweight copy paper and dry wax deli papers, my collage elements of choice.

The key to working effectively with the gel plate is creating layers.

Layers and layers and layers

Don't be afraid to mash one print down on top of another, again and again. The imagery is interesting specifically because of its complexity!

Leave a lot of negative space to achieve high contrast...

...or allow the prints to blur together for lower contrast.

Change colors frequently on the plate and don't worry too much about cleaning it meticulously after each print.

If you stick with an analogous color scheme (three colors next to each other on the color wheel), you won't risk muddying your colors, so don't think too much about the process, just brayer and print, and brayer and print.

Happy new year!!

Hot Pink, In The Middle Of Winter

2011-12-20T20:16:00.000-06:00

It found its way!

(Abstract, 16" x 20" stretched canvas, acrylics, deli papers, corrugated cardboard)

I'm also thinking about writing a tutorial on creating texture for backgrounds and underpaintings. Will consider that idea more.

In the meantime, create with bold color!

Year-End Fun

2011-12-19T22:31:00.002-06:00

As has probably happened with a lot of you, end of the year festivities have taken the bulk of my attention, so posting a blog article has been challenging! Also, I'm mostly on a self-imposed vacation, so my work output has dipped to almost nil. Still, I found myself sneaking into the studio now and then, and some silliness with corrugated cardboard ensued, and well, now there's this little thing.

As soon as I get to the art store and buy more framed canvases, it will get permanently mounted. I kinda like it.

I will be back to my regular blogging in January, when I will be putting away the paints for a while and taking up the dyes once again. Also, I still have a neat giveaway of a new product to offer, so keep an eye out for that!

In the meantime, I hope everyone has a fun, safe and relaxing new year celebration, and that 2012 brings creativity, time with family and friends, and inspiration into your life!

Another Blast From The Past Tutorial!

2011-12-01T09:57:00.001-06:00

I found another tute I wrote back in '09 for these fun reindeer. These two reindeer have been a part of my holiday decorating for many years now and have held up beautifully year after year- with the exception of one horn, the tip of which was chewed off last year by a naughty kitty! Hope you enjoy this blast-from-the-past tutorial!

Again, my apologies for having no new photos of this technique to share, but here are the steps for making them!

What you'll need:

~ Paper mache forms in any shape, including boxes, purses, hanging ornaments, spheres, etc. This technique can be used on any item- including wood and some metals- that will take glue and paper well.

~ Paper napkins in bright, saturated colors. Patterning or design really don't matter. Obviously for these, I chose Christmas napkins, but any bright napkin will do as long as it doesn't have a lot of white space showing. The size of your project will determine the number of napkins you use. You'll almost always use more than you think you will, but one package is usually enough.

~ White primer spray paint and mask/gloves/goggles for safety.

~ White school glue, thinned with a little water.

~ Disposable foam brush.

~ Gold foil pen or metallic paint pen.

~ Embellishments (optional... in the case of the reindeer, I used ribbon and some stems of silk evergreen sprigs and berries. You can find these in the floral department of your local craft store).

What you'll do:

~ Wearing goggles, mask and gloves, spray paper mache form with white primer. Coat evenly and allow to dry completely.

~ Paper napkins are usually between two and three ply and only the top ply is printed with enough pigment to make this technique work. Separate ALL plys and only use the top (printed) ply for this project (don't discard the other plys... they can be used in other projects, or for clean-up).

~ Tear napkins into irregular pieces and strips. The size of the pieces doesn't really matter.

~ Using a foam brush, paint the primed paper mache with a little of the glue mixture, press a piece of torn napkin into the glue and smooth out any air bubbles by painting a little more glue on top. Work in small areas so the glue doesn't dry before you can cover it with paper. Continue layering the napkin pieces and glue until the entire surface is covered.

~ Allow to dry fully... could take a couple of days.

~ At this point, run your hands over the piece and check for any edges of napkin that might be trying to lift. If you find any, you can usually smooth them out by applying more of the glue mixture and letting it soak in. Then smooth with your fingers. You can also coat the entire thing with a couple of layers of thinned glue for protection, if you choose. I didn't bother with this step and my deer have remained in excellent shape for years, but it's up to you.

~ Once the piece is fully dried again, use the gold foil or paint pen marker to trace along the torn edges of the glued napkins. Allow your lines to intersect and break into as many pieces as you want. This is what creates the stained glass effect.

~ Embellish with any ephemera you like.

Happy holidays!

- Judi

Clearing The Decks

2011-11-28T10:07:00.001-06:00

This is what the design wall looks like this week.

In fact, the whole studio is looking a little sparse right now; every now and then I begin to realize that all the pretty eye candy scattered around my creative space- completed art pieces, experimental work, sketched studies- is no longer inspiring me but is, in fact, beginning to hold me back. It's the "Oh, you're all so pretty, I don't need to work when I can just look at you!" habit that an artist can easily develop if they fall too in love with their own creations. So when I start to ignore the rational, dispassionate, essential art critic inside of me who helps me define and refine my technique, and start to believe that every silly scrap of work is precious and whole unto itself (even when the art critic knows better), it's time to put everything away and make room for new ideas and new inspiration.

Now that all the work of the past six months is safely tucked away in closets and storage spaces throughout the house, it is both sobering and refreshing to walk into a studio that is not only clean, but mostly bare of past accomplishments.

Ready to get moving!

Glass Ornament Tutorial Redux

2011-11-23T10:13:00.001-06:00

Back in December of 2009, I posted this tutorial about how to create your own glass holiday ornaments. It's still a fun little tute, so I'm republishing it!

(Sorry there are no new photos to accompany this tutorial... I was out of the raw materials!)

What you'll need:

~ Clear glass ornaments, any size, with light-weight, removable metal hanger. Most craft or hobby stores carry these, and they're very inexpensive. Just ask for the ornaments that you can decorate yourself.
~ Alcohol-based re-inkers (I used Adirondack brand, but Jaquard makes nice inks, too). Choose as many colors as you want and at least one metallic additive (copper, silver or gold).
~ White (or black) liquid acrylic paint, or craft paint thinned with a little water.
~ Dixie cups, one for each ornament.

What to do:

~ Remove the metal hangers from the ornaments and set aside- do not discard!
~ Rinse the inside of the ornaments with hot water and allow to fully dry on a dish towel, or a paper towel.
~ Choose one color of ink (I like to start with the lighter colors, first) and drip (don't squeeze!!) a few drops inside the ornament. Turn the ornament so that the ink moves around, coating some of the inside but not the whole surface (otherwise, your ornament will only be one color). The ink will dry very quickly.
~ Choose another color and drip a couple more drops into the ornament. Turn to coat. You can do this with as many colors as you like, but I've found that more than three colors tends to muddy the pigments too much. Finally, choose one of the metallic inks and drop not more than one or two scant drips into the ornament- the metallic inks seem to spread more aggressively than the colored inks, so you only need the smallest bit of it! Allow to FULLY dry.
~ Once the alcohol inks are fully dry, squirt about one teaspoon to one tablespoon of white acrylic paint into the ornament and turn to completely coat the inside. (This is what will cause the colors of the ink to "pop". You can also use black for this step, as well.) Be careful not to get paint on the outside of the ornament and wipe up any that does.
~ When the inside of the ornament is coated with paint, upend the ornament into a Dixie cup and allow it to remain resting inside the top of the cup, hole pointed down into the cup, until dry. This could take several days to a week.
~ Once fully dry, replace metal hangers. The ornaments are now ready to hang. They can be stored easily in the box they are sold in.

Happy holiday creating!

GelliArts Gel Plate Giveaway Winner!

2011-11-21T12:23:00.001-06:00

The winner of the second surprise GelliArts Gel Plate winner is:

Terri Stegmiller!

Congratulations, Terri!!

The Design Wall This Week- Paper Fabric

2011-11-14T09:39:00.001-06:00

The design wall is full this week, despite my promise to myself to take some time off.

Recently I've been doing some Stacked Journaling studies in black and white, which I've then been using to create "paper fabric".

(detail, 14" x 14")

We all know that everyone has their favorite recipe for creating paper fabric but I've never managed to make any that yielded better than a stiff and unstitchable final product, so I've been revisiting the process using some of my favorite supplies- matte fluid medium and painted deli papers.

As I've mentioned before, I create dozens of deli paper collage elements when I'm painting. I've found them to be incredibly durable, tough, and lovely, with their natural translucency and the way they greedily soak up paints and inks. Unlike tissue, deli papers can take a real beating without tearing and shredding. I use papers that have a matte finish side and a satin finish side, which I recommend because while paint and ink will stick to the glossy side, for obvious reasons the matte side will always have better holding power.

After I've painted my papers and they have fully dried, I use the fluid medium to glue just the edges of the papers together (I do this on top of a piece of plastic so that once it's dried on the plastic, I can peel the whole thing off cleanly.) I can create any final size I like, such as this 30" x 30" piece.

After getting all of the papers adhered to one another and allowing the completed piece to dry, it can be mounted onto lightweight, fusable interfacing. The resulting "fabric" has a soft, stitchable hand.

Don't ask me what I intend to do with this stuff... I'm not sure yet!

Create boldly!

- Judi

IQF Houston, 2011

2011-11-08T09:45:00.001-06:00

A couple of years ago, I was juried into a photography contest hosted by the IQF which debuted at the Houston festival; I was thrilled and honored. But that feeling can't even compare to the floaty, astonished, humbled way I feel now as I sit and write this post.

Let me start my recap of my IQF experience by first apologizing for not having a single bit of photographic eye candy of the show, the quilts, the vendor area, or of friends. My beloved camera went missing in that enormous hall some time on Saturday before I could take and upload any to my computer! I don't grieve long, though- things go missing all the time- so today, I went and purchased a new "set of eyes", a Canon PowerShot SX40.

Still, not even being a bonehead with my camera could dampen my excitement during this years' show, or my pride in wearing this badge onto the convention floor.

I did my first Open Studios demo on Preview Night, Wednesday. Only students, teachers and vendors are allowed into the convention hall that night- not the thousands and thousands who will descend between Thursday and Sunday- but it gave me a great idea of what it would be like the next afternoon to demo at a table buzzing with fellow mixed-media artists and enthusiasts. It makes me so happy when I'm able to make art and talk with others about technique and process at the same time. An Open Studios demo is all about those two things, so I was in heaven! The Thursday demo was even more crowded and happy and kinetic; I chatted with hundreds of people throughout those two sessions about everything from products, where to buy them, and how to use them, to techniques, mediums and grounds. This kind of shop talk is even better to me than chocolate.

While giving the demos was one of the most fun things I've ever done and I will never forget it, it was meeting up with so many of the friends I've made in the fiber arts community that has left me so thunderstruck. THAT was the real highlight of the show for me, getting to see, hug, chat with, work with, and hang with so many friends! Unfortunately, I didn't even get to meet everyone I wanted to- it was crazybusy times, for sure, and as I looked around at my fellow artists who were also involved in all the same activities, I could see that it was like that for them, as well! A frenzy of fun, a whirlwind of a few days, and then it's over and we're all happy, exhausted and broke!

And speaking of ways to go broke at the festival, in the vendor area I naturally gravitated towards those merchants selling my most favorite products- fabric dyes and paints, mixed-media goodies, furniture builders (I may- towards the end of 2012- be in the market for a real sewing table), and longarm vendors.

One of my favorite vendor booths was Artistic Artifacts, purveyors of paints, unusual fabrics, found objects and embellishments. Owner Judy Gula and I will have a surprise coming in January that I think you'll enjoy, so look for that here on this blog!

And of course, the Make It University staff, volunteers and participating artists were incredible. I felt comfortable and happy working in their space and I hope I was able to make them proud, as well.

Festival was a success, despite the missing camera!

2011 is coming to an end, and it's been a year filled with both very, very good and very bad. It's been exhilarating and exhausting, and has come flying at me non-stop since January. It's time to slow down. I'll be taking some time off between now and New Years and after that, in 2012, my plan is to work hard, develop SJ into a new direction, and see where that journey takes me.

I know this for sure... I checked a bunch of things off my bucket list last weekend!

Happy creating!

Gelli Arts Giveaway Winner and a Surprise!

2011-11-07T10:28:00.000-06:00

The winner of the Gelli Arts Gel Printing Plat e is:

71square

Congratulations! I'll email you today and get your contact information!

To those who didn't win, I a fun surprise for you! Gelli Arts is offering a second 6 x 6 Printing Plate to another reader! When I got home from the Houston Festival, I had a lovely email in my inbox offering you guys another shot at winning a second Gelli Plate. But read closely, the rules for this second plate are different this time! This time, to be eligible for winning, you must first go over to the Gelli Arts Facebook page and "friend" them, OR you must go to their blog and "follow" it. Once you've done one of those things (or both!), come on back here to this blog post and let me know in comments.

I will announce the winner of the second plate on November 21, at noon. Best of luck!!

Gelli Arts Giveaway!!

2011-10-27T10:00:00.000-05:00

Yay, it's been so long since I've hosted a give-away that I wanted the next one to be special!

Gelli Arts, makers of those new and very cool gel printing plates, has generously donated one 6" x 6" Gel Printing Plate (a 20.00 value) to one of my readers and all you have to do to win it is comment on this blog post and tell me about the monoprinting loveliness you want to try with your new Gel Plate!

As an added incentive and in the hopes inspiring your muse, I will also be including a packet of 10 hand-painted, lightweight collage papers that I created using the Gel Plate.

It's so simple! If you want to win this neat package, just leave a comment on this blog post... I want to hear all about the masterpiece you will create with your new Printing Plate. And if you blog about this post and add a link to it in your post, notify me because I'll add your name into the hat a second time!

The contest starts today and will end at noon on November 7th! Please feel free to retweet and repost this giveaway, it's open to anyone who comments (PLEASE no anonymous commenting, I won't be able to find you to get your prize package to you!!)

You can come and watch me demonstrate my Stacked Journaling, painting, and collage techniques- as well as the way I use Gelli Printing Plates- at the Houston International Quilt Festival on Wednesday, November 2nd between 5:30 PM and 7:30 PM, and on Thursday, November 3rd between 12:40 PM and 2:40 PM. I will be out in front of the Quilting Arts and Cloth, Paper, Scissors booth both days!

Happy monoprinting!

Mistakes As Tools Of Growth

2011-10-25T14:41:00.002-05:00

Almost every time I've made what I've felt like has been a breakthrough with my Stacked Journaling technique, it's been the direct result of making a mistake. This week's fun discovery is no different.

As I've been making collage supplies for Festival, I've been doing a lot of SJ monoprinting. A few days ago, I had the plastic sheeting I use as a print plate laid out in front of me and I had just finished writing a Stacked Journaling text block on it with black paint. I was about to lay a sheet of deli paper on top of the plate to take the print when I realized I had managed to drop a big splat of water right into the middle of my design. The water was causing a puddle, making the text in that area blur and smear. Not wanting to scrap the entire plate (that's not a small amount of paint!), I dabbed at the little puddle of water with a paper towel, trying to blot it up. I figured if I succeeded, I would then just journal on top of the clean place and take my print.

Predictably, though, I made a mess of it and smeared even more paint, enlarging the area of distortion. The plate was ruined and I would need to wipe it clean and start again.

In frustration, I wadded up the paper towel and began to mop up a bit of the Stacked Journaling. But before I could wipe the towel across the ruined plate, I realized that it had picked up a fragment of the SJ. It was dead lovely.

I wadded up the towel again, dabbed at a bit more of the paint, wadded the towel, dabbed, and on and on until all the paint on the plate had been used up. Then I opened out the paper towel to see what I had.

I immediately loved the way snagging only a small portion of the monoprint broke the Stacked Journaling down into mere hints of line work. The fragmented design almost seems random, but still (to me) has unmistakable intention, as well.

I had to experiment even further, maybe on fabric, and try to clean up the design somewhat. I moved my idea to a small piece of white cotton. I used paint to SJ onto my printing plate, wadded the fabric up to cause wrinkles and crannies, and dabbed. I repeated this process through three different paint colors and I've decided I really love the effect.

On to more cotton, and more fragments of monoprinted Stacked Journaling.

And on deli paper, just because it was handy.

Maybe I'm going crazy, I really can't tell anymore, but it doesn't just look like random squiggles, does it? Well, whether it does or not, you can be sure that I will be experimenting with this later in the year with thickened fabric dyes on cotton.

So bring on the mistakes, pay attention to them until they teach you something new, and happy creating!

Another View Of A Working Studio

2011-10-19T08:24:00.002-05:00

This weekend, my studio got dismantled.

After spending a week playing on Nancy Crow's huge print tables, I decided that my more modest version should at least be accessible from all sides. It got pulled away from the large worktable and took a place of its own nearer to my side of the space. The large table moved up in the space by two feet. This gives me about 36" between the tables and allows me full access to all sides of each of them!

I love the transformation!

The next step will be to replace the track lighting with enough fluorescents to flood the space with a wash of light and cast out all the crazy shadows the tracks shed.

It only took me about an hour to put everything back together, including my most important studio elements: paint and tools!

O O O O and this is just totally cool: while I didn't win the Artisan Search 2012 (congrats to all the winners!!), I am on this MIU and Open Studios schedule and I can't believe my eyes! I hope you'll join me in Houston this year, it's going to be too much fun to miss.

Happy rearranging!

Guest Poster- Justin Birch

2011-10-13T08:11:00.000-05:00

Justin Birch wanted to be a high school teacher, and then a college professor, before encountering the difficulties of graduate school and professional academia. Now, as a writer and editor, he works to promote the quality and availability of undergraduate education in America.

The Importance of Art Education inEarly Childhood Development

It's no secret arts educationshould be considered endangered in the United States. School boards and stategovernments around the country are slashing arts budgets in desperation toclose funding gaps. For students, these cuts don't simply represent the loss ofa creative outlet, but the loss of a critical component of a well-roundededucation.

Numerous studies have shown thatarts education, whether instruction in music or visual arts or dance ortheater, doesn't just teach students to stretch their creative muscles. Rather,it teaches them to be better citizens, dedicated students, and creativethinkers. It lowers dropout rates and boosts post-graduation success. Leavingart education until students are attending onlinecollege is too late. It's mostimportant in early childhood, the years from birth to age eight, whenchildren's brains are developing rapidly and making new connections constantly.Some argue arts education is a luxury rather than a necessity, butpeer-reviewed research has proven just the opposite.

Fact: The arts are key to cognitivedevelopment in young children.

According to a study conducted bythe Task Force on Children's Learning and the Arts, art education benefits the entirebrain for young students. The task force's report looked at a number of studiesand initiatives and examined what measurable, statistically relevant benefitsthose studies demonstrated as related to early childhood development.

Their investigation revealed thatearly instruction in art, music, dramatic play, and dance assisted thedevelopment of cognitive, motor, and language skills. Researchers speculatethis development occurs due to the brain being routinely engaged in creativeendeavors that allow children to interact with the world and stimulate theirminds.

Arts education in early childhoodalso plays a central role in social-emotional development. As children enterthe toddler stage and move on to early childhood, they're learning to interactwith others and to express themselves emotionally. They're beginning to learnthe rules of society, and through art education they're able to learn and modelthose societal rules in safe ways.

The study also concluded that earlychildhood art education stimulates the brain to motivate children's desire tolearn and ability to retain information. By giving children the chance to experimentwith the world around them and engage in creative play, the arts transformordinary learning opportunities into exciting moments of inquiry. The tendencyof art education to actively engaging various regions of the brain makes itparticularly effective in this regard.

Fact: Children educated in artsbeginning in preschool are primed to continue learning.

A study by the National Association for the Education of YoungChildrendiscusses how preschool classrooms that encourage arts education and play areable to foster a lifelong love of learning. This doesn't mean art educationshould be a targeted goal abandoned upon completion of preschool. Rather, theNAEYC argues that when children are encouraged to extend their creativity andexplore the world around them, they will develop the skills they need tocontinue to enjoy learning.

Additionally, the study found thatart education, beyond helping children develop a love of learning, assistschildren in developing the self-confidence and esteem so critical for schooland life success. By offering children the opportunity to explore theircreativity, develop their understanding of the world, and learn through artisticplay, they grow engaged for future learning. In short, it's an essentialcomponent of development.

Fact: When schoolchildren receivearts education, their writing and math skills improve and their literacy ratessoar.

When researchers at the Universityof California in Los Angeles set out to study the effects of art education onstudent achievement, they approached the investigation in a new way. Instead ofconducting a new study, researchers in UCLA's education department examined 62previous studies on arts education. Their study, funded by the National Endowment of the Arts and the USDepartment of Education, revealed that each area of arts study has specificbenefits, but all affect students' ability to learn and apply basic literacyand mathematical skills.

Specifically, the study foundeducation in drama helps to hone students' ability to understand and interactin complex social situations. It also helps improve concentrated thought andreading comprehension because students must grasp complex narratives in orderto successfully perform a play.

In the realm of music education,the researchers were able to back up claims that practicing music leads toimproved math skills. However, they also found music education enhancescognitive ability and reading proficiency. It also helped second languagelearners as they developed non-native language skills.

Dance, the researchers discovered,is able to boost creative thinking, enhance ability to develop originalthoughts, and improve students' self-expression. Students enrolled in danceclasses in school also exhibited an increased ability to persevere in the faceof adversity, improved self-confidence, and greater social tolerance.

Finally, students enrolled invisual arts classes exhibited improved writing and literacy skills and werebetter able to draw reasoned conclusions from scientific images.

What this researchshould tell the education community is arts education is essential to thecontinued sociological and learning development of young school-age children.Children with opportunities to explore the visual and performing arts beginningat a very early age will reap later academic and social benefits. In short, childrengiven arts educations have the confidence and brainpower to achieve successlater on in their studies. Peer-reviewed research backs up these assertions,and education budgetary committees and parents ignore them at their peril.

Home!

2011-10-11T14:10:00.001-05:00

I'm home again from my visit to the Timber Frame Barn in Ohio where I took a surface design class taught by Carol Soderlund called Layers Upon Layers. This class was packed full of surface design demonstrations and instruction- everything from deconstructed screen printing to working with soy wax and dextrin resists, to mixing your own dye paint in any color and value you choose. Fantastic class! Here I am with some of the fabrics I finished in class.

Carol is always so warm, and completely generous with her deep understanding of fabric, dying, and design. Taking a class with her is always a joy so if you get the chance, run-don't-walk.

Before I left for Ohio I posted a short tutorial over on the Sketchbook Challenge blog for creating this simple but effective texture....

After playing with it for a while, I moved the technique from my sketchbook onto a small 16" x 20" canvas.

And then- just finished today- onto a 30" x 40" stretched canvas.

(Changes, 30" x 40", acrylics and paper on stretched artist canvas)

The Journaling on this piece was monoprinted with white acrylic paint and was done in one shot on a piece of plastic sheeting larger than the canvas. I'm pretty proud of the way I managed to get it onto the work with only two hands to handle it as floppy as it was and covered in paint. We won't again mention the white stripe of SJ that runs down my left cheek and onto my chin. Did I get any in my hair?

Working through this piece gave me a chance to take a little break from prepping for Festival. As I mentioned in a recent post, I've been preparing collage kits to work with during my demo sessions, and in order to time my pacing for actually creating the collages, I used one of the kits to construct this piece.

(Bubble Gum For Big Girls, 10" x 10")

This is a 10" x 10" piece of matboard, painted and collaged with (what else?) Stacked Journaling. If you'd like to learn this collaging technique, come visit my table at the Festival. I'll post my schedule as soon as I know it!

In the meantime, happy creating!

Carol, Nancy and Magic

2011-09-29T09:38:00.000-05:00

My life is entering into an almost magical phase. I'm very glad right now that I know what adversity truly is because if I didn't, I might not be able to appreciate the spell I'm under these days. Even as things with my father progress in the usual manner for Alzheimer's patients, the opportunities being offered to me because of my work are easily balancing the grief to joy ratio in my life right now.

On Sunday, I'm heading to the Crow Timber Frame Barn for a week spent in the company of two extraordinary teachers- Carol Soderlund and Nancy Crow- and a collection of fiber artists from around the country. I know from past experience with week-long art retreats that each one is a unique, transformative experience. I feel like I should be pinching myself every few minutes to make sure I haven't gone to sleep and started dreaming!

As if that wasn't a wonderful enough way to end what has already been for me a very creatively exhilarating year, I was, after all, offered the opportunity to to give two 2-hour demo sessions for Open Studios at the Houston International Quilt Festival! If you read a recent post of mine on the subject, you saw that I was keenly hoping they would give me the chance to demonstrate my Stacked Journaling technique, and it turns out that they liked the photos I sent them of the collage projects I wanted to demo! I'm incredibly flattered and pleased.

Knowing I will have to fill 4 hours of art-making activities has me redoubling my efforts to create "kits" for Stacked Journaling collages.

These kits consist of metal flashing and heavy mat board bases plus companion deli and copy paper collage elements. Making them not only gives me material to use in my demos, it also is excellent practice for timing myself and for finding ways to work cleanly without access to clean water or electricity.

For the first hour of each Open Studios session, I will demo how I use paint and Stacked Journaling to create these collage bases and papers, and for the second hour, I will demo how I assemble the collages. More details later on all that, though. I hope to meet some of you on the convention floor this November!

Finally, I get to round out the year in fine style by co-teaching a Make It University class with fellow Sketchbook Challenge artists Jane LaFazio, Sue Bleiweiss, Leslie Tucker Jenison, and Jamie Fingal! More details on that later, as well, I promise!

I know that this very modest exposure I'm receiving is fleeting, like most things, but I'm okay with that- it only means I will hang on all the tighter to these experiences. I'm going to keep my eyes wide open for this, friends- I don't want to miss a thing!

Happy creating (and see you in a week!)

The Sketchbook Challenge EZine!

2011-09-25T13:34:00.003-05:00

Stop the presses! The first Sketchbook Challenge E-zine is now available for purchase!

Available for download right now for only $9.99!

The Sketchbook Challenge E-zine is 83 full color pages of creativity, inspiration and projects!

Click here to peek inside!

What you’ll find inside...
Learn how to draw a pinecone with Jane LaFazio
Exploring Text Collage with Kelli Nina Perkins
Make a Scrappy House Quilt with Jamie Fingal
Working in series by Jane Davies
Make bad art with Lyric Kinard and become a better artist
Sue Bleiweiss shows you how to make a sketchbook sleeve
Carol Sloan shares her remedies for blank pages
Take 5! with Carla Sonheim
Screenprinting for the Mixed Media Artist by Leslie Tucker-Jenison
Take your sketchbook out to eat with Susan Sorrell
Stacked Journaling with Judi Hurwitt
Learn how to use your inner GPS to create journal pages with Violette
Learn a trio of pamphlet binding stitches from Diana Trout

Important information regarding printing this document for binding:This e-zine has been formatted for on screen viewing. If you want to print a copy to have bound then you must scale the document to 90% to allow for a wide enough left side margin. In the print box, select the scale option and change it to 90%. Please print a test page first (we recommend page 5) to make sure that the setting is appropriate for your printer before printing the entire document.

The Sketchbook Challenge E-zine is in pdf format and include step-by-step instructions and full-color photo illustrations. You must have Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0 or higher to be able to open the lessons. Adobe Acrobat Reader is a free software that you can download from the Adobe Website.

POST A REVIEW AND WIN A PIECE OF MAIL ART!

Post a review of the sketchbook challenge e-zine on your blog or website and we'll enter your name into a drawing to win a piece of mail art from one or more of the Sketchbook Challenge artists! Send a link to your published review by 12/1/11 to sue at sue@suebleiweiss.com to be entered into the drawing. Winners will be announced in December - good luck!

Open Studios

2011-09-14T10:09:00.000-05:00

I may be jumping the gun a bit, but I have high hopes that I will be chosen to demo this year at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, for Interweave Press at their Open Studios tables. In anticipation of that, I have been experimenting with Stacked Journaling art projects that are small and would be easy to produce in a public setting.

("Joyous" 12 1/2" x 12 1/2")

This is a Stacked Journaling collage I created using mat board as the substrate. I Journaled onto the mat board with various paint colors and as I was working with covering the mat board, I also created some collage papers in the same colors which then got cut up and used in the piece.

(detail)

I think I can prepare a bunch of the supplies needed to make these little collages and hopefully the visitors to the Quilt Show will enjoy watching, asking questions and even helping me to create these fun little art pieces!

Happy creating!

Artisan Search 2012 Fianlist!

2011-09-07T09:24:00.002-05:00

Wow, I've been chosen as a finalist in the Cloth, Paper, Scissors Artisan Search 2012, in the category of Printmaking and Surface Design! Thank you, Jenn Mason and the CPS staff for the opportunity to compete!!

These are the pieces I submitted.

Now I need to pack these up and ship them to the CPS offices for the final evaluation!

Thank you, Lynn, for all your advice, help and encouragement while I made the decision to do this and was putting together the packet. You're my hero.

Fall's Coming

2011-09-04T19:40:00.000-05:00

"Fall's Coming" 41 1/2" X 50"

I dyed this cotton Pimatex last year. I'd always loved it, but because of its color variation and strong horlzontal patterning I was never sure where to take it next. It wound up languishing in my stash until last week, when I broke it out and started working back into it.

"Fall's Coming", detail

I monoprinted two layers of Stacked Journaling using Neopaque textile paint and one layer using Lumiere.

The lower half of the top photo is so heavily shadowed that I've set a new goal for myself for 2012- I'm going to refine and repair my photographic challenges (poor lighting, no tripod, hit-or-miss understanding of my camera's features, etc) so I can start to produce high quality images of my own art.

Becoming a better photographer, and taking full responsibility for producing excellent, usable images, will place more control of my career in my own hands. I will no longer be dependent on paying someone to take photos of my work. It's past time; wish me luck, friends!

The Curl

2011-08-30T09:56:00.001-05:00

In one of my last posts, I talked a bit about some aluminum flashing that I've been painting and collaging onto.

Another trip to Lowes last week turned up large, flat, pre-cut sheets of aluminum of a heavier grade than the flashing, and I'm happy to report that after a good sanding, this stuff makes an amazing substrate for mixed-media work!

(Untitled, 24" x 24" Aluminum, Monoprinted Stacked Journaling, Collage, Acrylics)

This piece consists of layers and layers and layers of monoprinted Stacked Journaling in black, white, purple, orange and yellow acrylic paint. More layers of transparent paint glazes were then applied, wiped off and reapplied until I was happy with the background. I collaged deli papers painted with more SJ to the surface and then brought the whole thing together with one final glaze of paint.

It will be hung by drilling wood screws directly through the front of the piece into wooden blocks which will be positioned on the back. A hanging wire will then be strung from the wooden blocks. Yes, I know I will have to go directly through the painting and collage to achieve this- no worries, that was always my intent when working with the aluminum: I love the industrial look of it.

You'll have to excuse the poor photo quality, however- I usually roll up my garage door to photograph work on my design wall with indirect sunlight, but it's hummingbird season and yesterday when I rolled up the door, three of the little guys flew in for a visit and a snoop around, and got stuck in my studio for almost four hours!

I will have to leave the door down until they stop flocking, which could take another couple of months. So my photos are catch-as-catch-can for the moment!

Also in my last post I discussed Curl, a 3-D art object I was creating with the roll of aluminum flashing. I finished it over the weekend and I love it!

It is nearly six feet in length, and measures 10" from top to bottom.

It is two sided- orange-y/avocado on one side...

... and yellow/green on the other...

These pieces were done almost exactly like the piece at the top of this post, but I eliminated the heavy glazing in favor of letting the metal shine through in the background.

It turns out that Curl requires certain conditions to be displayed properly, though... specifically, it needs to be lit either from directly above or directly beneath the piece, otherwise the curve of the flashing causes heavy shadows inside the piece and the two-sided effect is lost.

However, this was so much fun to make, and turned out so well, that I'll be creating more of them. In the meantime, my husband and I want to display it and since we don't have a good pedestal for it, we will hang it as you see above, as one long piece stretched across the wall. We will mount it to the wall using mirror clips so we won't damage either side in the hanging process.

Happy creating!

Stay-cation!

2011-08-25T16:22:00.001-05:00

(acrylics on deli paper, monoprinted Stacked Journaling)

Happy weekend!

Experimenting

2011-08-23T12:46:00.000-05:00

For years, I've searched for new and unusual substrates for my painting and collage work. My main requirement, my "dream surface", would be rigid, lightweight, would tolerate both wet and thick mediums, and would be impermeable to liquids.

Enter aluminum flashing, purchased in long rolls at a big box hardware store.

(WARNING: This stuff is wickedly dangerous when it first comes out of its packaging. It usually comes rolled very tightly... if you're not wearing protective clothing, gloves and eyewear as you cut it free of its shrink wrap, you risk seriously hurting yourself because it wants to unspool instantly and is all sharp, thin, metal edges. Even after releasing it from it's wrapping, I wear heavy gloves when handling it. You've been warned!!)

I experimented on two small pieces before deciding to tackle the rest of the roll as one piece.

I hammered both sides of each piece so that they would lay flat, and then sanded each side with a heavy grit sandpaper to give it good tooth.

One piece got collage elements...

... while the other got several layers of Stacked and Monoprinted Journaling in coordinating paint colors...

Happy with the results of both tests, I set on the roll of flashing like a mad woman, sanding both sides with my power sander. It was a loud proposition, so I had to use hearing protection, but the sander made the job fun, fast and easy.

I began to realize, though, that I would never be able to fully remove the curl that was a result of having been wound so tightly at the factory. Instead, I decided to embrace it, and even enhance it- instead of trying to hammer the piece flat so that it would stretch across the wall like a painting, I would tighten the curl and allow it to stand on a surface as a 3-D sculpture. I will paint and collage both sides so that when standing over the piece (as it might sit on a coffee or console table), you will see both the inside and the outside interacting with one another in a large curled shape.

Ok, so maybe that only makes sense to me, but once it's complete and I can get some good photos of it, it will become more clear!

Anyway, here's one side of the roll of sanded and manipulated flashing as I added layers of monoprinted Stacked Journaling with paint. I wrote my Journaling on deli paper that I will later paint and stain, and use as my collage elements for this piece.

After spending so much time this morning reinforcing the curl in the metal (I did this by rolling the sheet, a few inches at a time, against the metal edge of a shelf), it required a little maneuvering to make the sheet lay flat while I applied the monoprinted SJ.

I used a dictionary to tame one end of the curl, and my heavy iron to tame the other end.

I'm digging the industrial look of SJ on brushed metal. I'll continue working both sides of this piece until it's complete and then I'll see if I can get a good shot of it sitting on my coffee table.

Happy experimenting!

Exposure Vs. Privacy

2011-08-23T08:45:00.001-05:00

My biggest fear as a very private person is exposure, hanging out in the wind by my toes.

My biggest fear as an artist is being invisible.

Naturally, the two things clash quite frequently, and as I push myself as an artist, my lifes' me-only comfort zones get demolished in favor of new expectations of myself. I push my art: my anonymity slips away.

So it's tough for me every time I take a further step out my doorway. But I must because I know without a doubt that it's the danger and the challenge that makes me grow.

All this is a really dramatic way of telling you all that I've entered the Cloth, Paper, Scissors Artisan Search 2012 contest.

It should be nothing, taking photos of my work and sending them off to be evaluated- I've done it before, and of course I do it here, in this blog. I should be used to it by now. But halfway through the process of putting my packet together, I freaked out a little. Quietly. Panicking.

I slipped out of the house and without even changing clothes, I plunged into the pool in the back yard. I floated around, my hands over my head, my face almost in the water, thinking, "I can expose myself! No, I can't! I can expose myself! No, I can't! I am so afraid to expose myself but I can, dammit, I can!!"

It took nearly an hour of this nonsense, floating and worrying and floating and talking to myself, before I unlatched my fingernails from the proverbial ceiling and climbed down to earth, again.

I can. And I will.

What part of you will you expose, today?

Off-Loading Paint

2011-08-10T15:43:00.002-05:00

Stacked Journaling can produce a lot of material in just a short amount of time, particularly when I monoprint it.

To recap so everyone remembers, when I monoprint Stacked Journaling, I write with paint squeezed directly from the bottle onto a wide strip of parchment paper. Then I turn the parchment over onto my substrate- usually fabric, canvas or paper- and gently burnish the back to transfer the paint.

Once I've done this, though, despite it being called a "mono" print, there is still a lot of paint left on the parchment that I refuse to waste. Instead of wiping that paint away, I off-load it by spritzing it lightly with water and burnishing deli papers or 60# copy paper onto the parchment.

The result is a lot of fun, lightweight collage papers, which I go back into later with glazes of paint.

All of these collage papers were created in this way, a treasure trove of source material, all of which relate to each other and to the original piece (in this case, the first photo of this post!)

You paid a lot of money for your materials... never feel as if they need to be wasted just so you can experiment with techniques that are new to you!

Happy collaging!

Evolution and The Power of Cutting Tools

2011-08-09T11:05:00.005-05:00

This piece...

... didn't languish long on the design wall.

I took it down shortly after that photo was taken and began working back into it with layers of glazes in various areas to create more contrast. I liked the evolution of the piece, but not enough to call it done.

Stacked Journaling has the tendency, I'm finding, to become very stripe-y, very quickly. I've devised several strategies to combat that, but used none of them in this piece. The stripes began to get on my nerves.

To find my solution, I turned to another one of my favorite design tools.

I cut the piece apart into large chunks, and continued working into each piece with more layers of glazing.

Finally, I began to collage them together.

These three collages, meant to be displayed as a triptych, measure about 13" x 13" each. The two on the right have already been mounted onto their painted plywood bases and the one on the left will be mounted as soon as hubby has a chance to cut more panels for me. They will hang in this order, as you see them.

Rather than collaging one piece on top of another, which would have been too bulky considering the heavy canvas and multiple layers of acrylics I used, I decided to "inlay" the collage pieces. For example, in the collage on the far right, I cut a shape I liked from the darker canvas and then cut a corresponding shape out of the lighter canvas so that the darker piece would nestle down within it. Then I used heavy gel medium to adhere them both to the plywood.

The edges all butt seamlessly against one another which enforces the illusion that the collage is one piece of canvas painted in two different color schemes.

I've not yet decided what substrate on which I want to mount this single, stand-alone collage, but I will use the same "inlay" technique with it, as well.

What I'm really loving about working with cut up pieces of Stacked Journaling is that the text seems to flow from one piece into another. Because it's all written in one hand - mine - and because all of my Journaling and monoprinted Journaling tends to have such similar qualities, different samples can be mixed and matched with each other effortlessly.

Once again, the technique is surprising me by heading off in directions I never imagined!

Happy creating!

Carol Soderlund

2011-08-07T12:46:00.003-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, I heard from my friend (and a woman I consider a mentor), Carol Soderlund. She's been traveling and teaching workshops all year, and she finally landed back at home for a few weeks' rest before heading out on the road again. She said she'd visited my blog to catch up with what I was doing, and that she enjoyed the work she saw (flattering!)... and then she shook my tree to its roots by asking one simple question: Where's the cloth?

Where's the cloth? Such a good question, and so insightful.

And right, too. I haven't been working with fabric at all this year. A couple of collages with fabric I'd already dyed in previous years, some stacked journaling samples here and there, but no real surface design work on cloth. I've had my reasons for it- some of them valid, most of them excuses- but after a few emails back and forth with Carol discussing them, she gently suggested that I needed to get off my duff and pick up the cloth, again.

The good news is that she's teaching a class in October that should be just the ticket to reinvigorate my fabric muse.

Layers Upon Layers, offered by Carol at the Crow Timberframe Barn, promises to be a most unusual exploration of surface design.

To celebrate her new class- and in happy anticipation of attending it, myself- I've interviewed Carol to talk to her about what her students can expect!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Judi: When someone asks you what you do for aliving, how do you answer and why?

Carol: I teach art workshops for adults oncolor, fabric dyeing, and surface design.

Judi: While you’re known for your innovative and popularclasses, Color Mixing For Dyers and Color Mixing For Dyers II, your newestclass Layers Upon Layers sounds quite different. What can you tell us aboutyour new classroom experience? What experiences does this class hold for yourstudents?

Carol: I am very excitedabout the class! Last fall's class was so rich and varied. Each persondid very individual work, and no one's work was alike. There will be asmall amount of preparatory work in advance of class, mostly gatheringinspirational images, but also developing a textural print, as I am planning tobring a Thermofax screen for each student who sends me an image in advance. Iwill email about all this about to those who sign up 6 weeks ahead of class. Wewill also be working with blank silkscreens and creating texture boards. An emphasis will be experimenting with the order of layers to seedifferent effects. Those who choose to may be patching and stitching beforedyeing to create textures.

Ice Storm, © Carol Soderlund

Judi: Is this class about making complex cloth?

Carol: Layering multipletechniques on one piece of cloth is one way to explore layering, and I will bedemonstrating several ways to do this with layers of dye and paint.

However, it is only one way to explore theconcept of layering, and much more limited than my concept.

I envision layering as much more thanthat. For example, I can see layering color with soy wax layers --color,wax, color, wax, color, wax-- as fully within the parameters of this class.

Another example, layering cloth of varyingopacity--sheers and opaque.

Another example, layering cloth of differenttextures--linen and silk and cotton and velvet, for example.

Soy Wax sample, © Carol Soderlund

Judi: Can you discuss more about this statement inthe course description:

"Those who choose to may be patching andstitching before dyeing to create textures."

Carol: I was deliberatelyvague here, because I don’t want to limit anyone’s thinking. The order oflayers will be under consideration. You could piece before dyeing or surfacedesign, or at any point in the process. You could also patch --as in handstitch a raggedy edge piece on top of another piece and then dye it. Ilove that the description made you wonder about it!

Ice Storm (detail), © Carol Soderlund

I really hope to inspire each student to takelayering each in her own direction. I also hope to stimulate some ideasfor directions maybe not previously considered. So while making complex clothMAY be involved for some people, others may explore the concept of layering inquite different directions. I will be asking students to do some thinkingwork ahead of class, and to start collect some examples of layering asinspiration.

Soy Wax sample, © Carol Soderlund

I am having a blast developing my samples and the concepts of what is possible. I think the week will be very interesting. I will do several demos of technique, and will have “prompts,” but students will have much freedom to explore directions that in interest them personally. This will make for a very rich environment, where all are stimulated by what others are doing.

Student Work, © Carol Soderlund

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So I know where I'll be spending the first week of October- in the beautiful setting that is the Timber Frame Barn, immersed in something I love and surrounded by like-minded artists. You should join me!

Happy creating!

This Week

2011-07-29T09:47:00.002-05:00

In case anyone was wondering, painting Stacked Journaling on a large scale all week will make your arms feel like lead for about three days. Still, it's a labor of love to me, even when things look and feel a little wonky.

I've been working on this piece this week...

(36" x 42", Untitled

canvas monoprinted with acrylic paint)

... a huge hunk of unframed canvas, but I've been thinking about this piece that I painted years ago called, "Redefining Pink".

Redefining Pink, 2007

(18" x 24", 140# watercolor paper

acrylic paint with masks,

stencils, foam printing plates)

In Redefining Pink and other pieces of that time, I was working my way through the girly color palette I had loved as a child, trying to bring it into a more adult, sophisticated realm so I could begin using it in my work. All these years later, I'm still painting with that same color palette.

Do you have a favorite palette you return to again and again?

Happy weekend!

Take A Leap!

2011-07-25T10:25:00.006-05:00

I've been puttering with some products lately and I wanted to tell you a little bit about them. As usual, I have no affiliation with these companies and I won't make a dime or become famous if you go out and buy stock in them based on this blog post. dangit

Over the last eight months, I've found a couple of ways to get Stacked Journaling onto various substrates including fabric, paper and framed artist canvases. By a couple, of course, I mean 385621093756589290174 Billion. And every time I think I've found and explored the very last method, another method presents itself.

This weekend, while piddling with some of my old hand-dyed fabrics, I pulled out this handy gadget, meant to help brighten your laundry.

Using the narrow end of it, I did some Stacked Journaling with it on this fat quarter.

Not bad. The opening was designed, of course, to deliver thickened bleach to household stains, not for actual writing, so the product comes out accordingly in thick, ropey lines that tend to soak into the fabric and then spread. Handy to know when I want to create large text.

But for the fine, thin lines I usually crave for SJ, I needed a better solution. I turned to a Jacquard product I often use on squeezie paint bottles:

These metal tips come in three diameters, .5mm, .7mm, and .9mm, and are perfect for getting clean, thin lines. (You can usually find them either online or in an art store.) Who knew they'd also fit on the end of a bleach pen?

Ahhhhh, much better! For this bit of text (and I know you can't tell the scale, but the whole text block itself only measures about eight inches long by five inches tall) I created some monoprinted Stacked Jouranling by writing with the bleach pen on parchment paper, turning the paper over onto a piece of hand-dyed fabric, and pressing gently.

I'm feeling like the possibilities are endless for this combination of inexpensive tools. The bleach gel is the perfect consistency for squeezing through even the tiniest metal tip and once the bleach is used up and the pen is empty, I can wash and neutralize the pen so it can be repurposed. It's comfortable to hold, and for writing it's easy on the hands- and believe me, that's becoming a huge issue with me: I don't want to reach the age of 50 with Carpal Tunnel in both hands from years of Stacked Journaling! I can reuse the pen over and over by filling it with paints, adhesives, thickened dyes, or even home-made thickened bleach.

Necessity really is the mother of invention.

Create with a sense of curiosity!

- Judi

Insert Snappy Title Here

2011-07-12T17:31:00.000-05:00

Well, the radio show was a hoot to do, and I think I did a respectable job! Hosts Rebecca Parsons and Lyna Farkas were very easy to chat with and kept things moving along nicely. So, yay! You can still hear it by clicking the link above, too!

I've been spending more hours in the studio lately and it's been really good for me. And because I'm still determined on this blog to show my whole artistic process, to not hide my bumps and bruises and to discuss failures right alongside successes because we all have them and hiding them would be disingenuous of me, let's now have a quiet little chat about MSJ No. 4, shall we?

(MSJ No.1-6)

You know how you go to start a really large piece? And it's humming along nicely? And you're really happy with it? And suddenly, way sooner than you expected, it resolves itself and looks like it's finished? And how, despite the way it looks and the way it makes your sweet husband rhapsodize to you about showing your work, you decide it isn't actually finished because dammit, you're in charge of the painting, the painting isn't in charge of you, and you have a Vision (capitalized and italicized)? You know how you grab more paint and lay more layers and utterly obliterate what was beautiful and simple and lovely about it because you're determined to make the piece fit your original Vision (capitalized and italicized) for it, rather than letting it decide for itself when it has had enough?

Yeah. That's the only explanation I have for the black/white/gray beastie at the bottom of this photo.

I could recreate the original piece, the one both Greg and I loved but which I just didn't trust, but it would never be the same. So this is what it is, and it isn't bad... it just isn't what it was.

Still, despite that piece being somewhat of a disappointment, the rest of the work is engrossing me and I'm really happy with what's happening. Most of this series is taking place (so far) on stretched canvases, but one of them is a large sheet of paper.

In the photo above, you can also see the pile of parchment strips I've been using to create most of the monoprints. I keep thinking of them as scrolls with some foreign language imprinted on them. Oh, how I wish they could be preserved!

This piece, MSJ #5, keeps drawing my eye back to the design wall. It wants to be larger. It wants to be monstrously larger than it is. We'll see what happens.

These small, inexpensive stretched canvases I've been using are wonderful for testing out ideas and I'm using so many of them that they're starting to stack up along the walls (as you can see in the photo.) It might be time for another giveaway, especially since I seem to have allowed my 2nd year anniversary of the Approachable Art blog slip past me, unnoticed! I'll chew on that for a while and see what fun stuff I can come up with.

In the meantime, create, bless and release!

Artistically Speaking

2011-07-10T10:58:00.001-05:00

I can't even believe I'm saying this, but I'm going to be interviewed on the radio tonight about my experiences with The Sketchbook Challenge, my art and my creative process. The show is called Artistically Speaking and it's a live program so while I'm a little nervous I'm also very excited, too, and I hope you'll give a listen! You'll need a free verion of iTunes to listen to this show.

This is the information that I've been given about how to tune in by the show's host, Rebecca Parsons:

Here is a ScreenCast Tutorial about registering to Listen to Blog Talk Radio:

The Chat is the way to communicate with Lyna and me and our guest(s) while the show is LIVE on air. It is also one way to get on air to speak with us.
Anyone can listen to a Blog Talk Radio show. However, to use the Chat feature during the show, you must register as a User at BTR. It is simple and the above tutorial walks you through the process step-by-step if you need it. The chat during
the show is how you can ask questions of the guests, win prizes, and, perhaps, get on the show. It takes a few minutes to register, so please come a few minutes before the scheduled show to sign in.

You can listen via the telephone if you're away from your computer. You can even have your reminder notifications send you a text message so that you can get the information right on your cell phone.

The beauty of BlogTalkRadio, is that you have several options to hear the show. If you can't listen LIVE via the computer, you can listen LIVE via the telephone. If you can't listen live at all, then you can download it to your computer, your iTunes, your iPod or you can just stream the episode you want to listen to from the ARTISTICALLY SPEAKING Show Page.

To subscribe to ASTS BlogTalkRadio show using iTunes:

All you will need to do is follow these three easy steps.

1) Make sure you have downloaded iTunes to your computer. You can download the newest versions of iTunes here. Without this software installed, you cannot subscribe to any feeds using iTunes. Please note that all BlogTalkRadio podcasts are free of charge.
2) In iTunes, visit the show profile page that you would like to subscribe to. At the top of every profile page is a show name. Next to the show name, you will find an orange RSS button and an iTunes button. Clicking on the iTunes icon will open your iTunes software, and take you to your podcasts section on the iTunes store. You will find the show information for that particular show, along with a "Subscribe" button right at the top of your iTunes page. You will then click "Subscribe" to formally subscribe to the show. You will get a confirmation pop-up window to confirm that you really want to subscribe.
3) Click on the Podcasts link on the left of your iTunes window. You should now see the subscribed show in this list. If the arrow next to the show is pointed to the left, you can click that arrow so it points down and you will then see all of your
subscribed podcasts for that show expand down the page for as many shows as they have available. That arrow allows for organization of all of your subscribed podcasts. If you are unable to locate your favorite BlogTalkRadio show in iTunes,
please send an e-mail to service@blogtalkradio.com, and we will be glad to assist.

More!

2011-07-06T19:31:00.000-05:00

Another monoprinted Stacked Journaling painting. Acrylics on stretched canvas.

16" x 20"

I am currently working on a large canvas (30" x 40") and will show it when it's complete.

Happy journaling!

Cloth, Paper, Scissors

2011-07-02T17:27:00.000-05:00

So I had a small bit in the Muse Flash section of this month's Cloth, Paper, Scissors!

I sent them a few photos of work I did using packing materials as stamps, and now that the magazine has his the stands, I can show you the photos they didn't choose for publication!

These are paintings and collages on copy paper and heavy tag. Some of them contain (of course) Stacked Journaling.

Stacked Journaling in a New Way

2011-06-28T16:03:00.006-05:00

Well, I sure hope you're all not utterly sick of seeing more Stacked Journaling, because I have been developing it steadily over the months and I love the current direction it's taking in my painting and mixed-media work!

A few weeks ago, I began composing SJ art letters by squeezing paint directly onto my substrate out of a bottle that employs a fine, metal tip screwed to its spout. This gave me tremendous freedom not only to be able to use all of the various paint mediums at my disposal, but also to be able to write in many different scales, from very large to very small.

One afternoon while composing a Stacked Journaling letter in this manner, I began to get frustrated with the paint I was using: I'd thickened it too much and it was getting blobby and heavy on the canvas. I grabbed a piece of deli paper, carefully placed it on top of the painted SJ, blotted with the lightest pressure, and lifted the paper away. POOF, I'd discovered Monoprinted Stacked Journaling. It was as if someone had hit me with a sledgehammer and my heart started galloping in my chest.

I've been obsessively using monoprinting with my painted SJ ever since.

In this piece, a 16" x 20" stretched canvas, I layered multiple monoprints of SJ in white, lemon yellow and golden yellow Neopaque paint on top of a painted background of soft yellows. A polishing of violet textile paint came next, and finally, one last bold stripe of monoprinted SJ in magenta brings the piece into focus.

To create the monoprints, I Journaled in paint onto strips of parchment paper, turned them over, and carefully pressed them onto the canvas. Using parchment allows me to wrap the SJ around the edges of the canvas, giving it an even more finished look. Here are those lovely, leftover parchment strips hanging on my design wall (I wish I could actually reuse them in my work, but being parchment, the paint will never adhere to the paper.)

In a wonderfully mysterious way, the Stacked Journaling plays hide-and-seek with the eye, fading in and out through the transparent layers of paint. The text, while perfectly obscured for privacy, still nonetheless reads as very deliberate and directed text (which it is), rather than as simple scribbles.

I think it's about time to take this technique to something larger, like a gallery-sized canvas or a couple of yards of fabric!

Happy creating!

Bold and Graphic

2011-06-10T11:31:00.001-05:00

For the last couple of weeks. I've really been trying to focus-to the exclusion of almost everything else- on the voice inside me that asks me (and not usually politely) to make art. I find that the the more attention I pay to that voice, the less I struggle to interpret what it wants to tell me.

And now, suddenly, bold and retro graphics are flowing out onto my paper and canvases! While I'm baffled by that trend (I've never considered myself a graphic artist), I'm going with it and enjoying watching the show unfold.

As is obvious by now, I don't generally work figuratively. Working figuratively makes me nervous, exposes me and the sorry state of my drawing skills. Somehow, it's always just easier for me to express my emotions and the impulses of my inner creative voice when I can do it in the abstract.

Nevertheless, the piece below is a very deliberate, blunt attempt to express a struggle I see going on in Dad as he reaches back into his past to try and hold onto who he is, today. His constant refrain (and advice) to me is, "Don't get old!" and I find myself nodding in agreement, even as I continue to age a little more every day.

Here, an elderly man reaches out to capture the setting sun as it sinks away from his grasp.

After the painting of sun, sky and gentleman was completed, I masked off the silhouette of the man and wrote a Stacked Journaling letter across him in white paint squeezed directly from the bottle.

An unexpected result of using Stacked Journaling so often in my work to help me express my frustrations with- and fear of- Alzheimer's, is that I have come to recognize the intimate bond between words and dementia.

For the dementia sufferer, words can eventually stop making sense altogether and the ability to communicate breaks down entirely. While Dad is thankfully not to that point, it's more obvious all the time that he becomes confused after speaking or listening to only a couple of sentences. Tracking a lively conversation as it moves around a room is impossible for him, so he usually just sits quietly, looking at his lap. The books he's always loved are now most likely just a confusion of words he's unable to navigate in order to enjoy the plot lines, character studies and surprise endings. He hands dog-eared paperbacks off to us, one or two a week, and says he's finished them, but we never ask him anymore what they're about- he simply doesn't know.

I've created a couple of large printing plates that represent to me this confusion of words- letters that head off in every direction, an implication of language that's become too muddied to read, a blizzard of information that can no longer be processed- and have been using them over and over again lately. And again, bold, retro graphics keep emerging.

In the piece below, a confluence of happy accidents: yesterday I asked my dear friend, Lynn Krawczyk, if she thought a handprint would make a good Thermofax screen (she being the Queen and Guru of All Things Thermofax, all hail!) She said she thought it was a great idea, so I took to the studio and created several prints of my left hand using plain white paper and opaque black paint.

The prints that were left over after I'd chosen my favorite one and scanned it for Lynn were too cool to just toss out. In this piece, I masked off the hand with clear contact paper and used my recently-created printing plates to lay text around the hand.

Even though this simple bit of art was created using the emo-laden printing plates, the final product feels bold, young, and empowering to me, as if the hand with its splayed fingers is stopping, by sheer force of will, the flow of confusion.

Have a great weekend and create boldly,
- Judi

Dear Dementia: You Haven't Won Yet

2011-06-08T13:44:00.000-05:00

Another mixed-media art letter titled "Dear Dementia: You Haven't Won, Yet."

This one is a 16" x 20" stretched canvas that contains layers of painted papers, deli papers and acrylic paints and glazes. It is finished off with a Stacked Journaling letter written with gel adhesive squeezed through a nozzle-tipped bottle. When dry, gold foil was ironed to the adhesive.

The Letter Series, and Other Things

2011-05-23T15:11:00.000-05:00

I've gone back to my Stacked Journaling Letter Series this week in a letter written to myself titled, "Dear Judi: Tangled"

7 1/2" x 11"

The substrate for this piece is one of the lovely tag cards I brought home with me from Pennsylvania. I painted multiple washes of Golden fluid acrylics across the glue side of a piece of Pellon double-sided fusable web. When it had dried, I ironed it to the white tag, trimmed the edges, and sealed the whole thing with a layer of matte medium.

I should have taken a photo of it at that point, but I was anxious to dive into journaling, so that didn't happen. However, I used the same technique and mediums on this green piece...

... so you can at least have an idea of what it looked like- in reds and blues- before the letter I was writing took over and covered the surface. I used Sakura opaque white fine-line paint pens to do the Stacked Journaling. The graffiti-esque quality of this technique just never fails to captivate me.

Having these colors out on my desk all weekend meant that a lot of other surfaces got played with, too, in essentially the same color palette (I never work on one piece at a time, I always have multiples going at once!)

Both of these pieces are a little too complex to simply call them "painted" or "collage" papers, but they can't really be considered completed art pieces, either.

I started each piece by first stamping black opaque paint in various designs onto lightweight copy paper. The paper was then torn and reassembled onto deli paper with a little gel medium. Then each piece of deli paper was washed and stamped repeatedly with layers of both transparent and opaque paints.

The fun thing about each piece is that they still maintain a very light weight and hand, so they could easily be torn into still more fragments and reassembled into some other collage work, later on.

In more experimentation with ironing painted fusable web to deli paper, I did some painting and stamping on two more pieces of the web, cut them apart and reassembled them into separate but related collages. Then they got more paint and more texture.

Like the pieces above, these can now either be mounted and called finished, or cut/ripped apart later for a different project.

Hope your weekend was creative!

I've Been Busy

2011-05-18T16:46:00.000-05:00

I've been kind of busy with hand-dyed fabrics and old, painted wallpaper scraps and painted papers. The whole thing is mounted on heavy, double-stick interfacing with lots of Misty Fuse. And no Stacked Journaling. Or angst.

(9 1/2" x 11")

Also, some fun painted paper (mostly off-loaded paint from the piece above!)

Black and White

2011-05-18T16:42:00.003-05:00

A paper and paint collage inspired by Anne Bagby's quirky and wonderful work.

Mother's Day Blog Hop!

2011-05-09T10:07:00.001-05:00

Collage artist, Claudine Intner, wrote recently asking for participants for her Mother's Day blog hop, so I volunteered. Today is my day!

I've been so focused lately on things having to do with my father that both my mother and my daughter have been left to fend for themselves without me. I can hear both of them now telling me that they're each fully capable of fending for themselves without my input, thankyouverymuch, and boy howdy, are they! But I still miss spending the time with them, and I get the feeling now and then that they may miss it a little, too.

Mother, daughter, daughter, mother, anchor, wings. The relationships are so complex, so mysterious and impossible to quantify. There's good days and bad days, good years and bad ones; subjects you should never discuss together and favorite memories you both revisit often; advice that should be given, withheld or just plain stockpiled until and if the timing is ever right.

And fights! No one can fight with more precision and competence than a mother and daughter. No relationship is capable of more meltdowns, drama moments and door-slamming than a mothers' and daughters'.

And yet there are a million other moments, the ones you remember and that count the most, moments of support, hand-holding and breathtaking generosity.

No one loves quite like a mother and daughter.

Please go and visit the other Mother's Day Blog Hop participants, too!

May 1st – Claudine Intner
May 2nd – Melissa Liban
May 3rd – Lynn Krawczyk
May 4th – Ishita Bandyo
May 5th – Jeri Greenberg
May 6th – Kathleen Mattox
May 8th – Amanda Ruth
May 9th – Judi Hurwitt
May 10th – Kathleen Murphy
May 11th – Hannah Phelps
May 12th – Helen Hiebert
May 14th – Hannah Klaus Hunter
May 15th – Claudine Intner

New Work

2011-05-08T16:10:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned here that I had dug out two large stretched canvases and Gesso'd them to prepare to make new work with them. One of them is hanging in my living room now, and this one was finished in the studio this morning.

Abstract, 30" x 40", stretched canvas

This is another piece in my exploration of hand prints, almost as an answer to my Dear Dad series. I've been playing with my own hand prints lately, stacking them in the same fashion as the Stacked Journaling featured in the Dear Dad series, and this is another expression of that playfulness.

This piece began with Stacked Journaling applied to the primed canvas with a thick, black Sharpie. The Journaling became almost utterly obscured by subsequent layers which were fashioned by smearing my gloved hands with Golden's fiber paste and pressing them repeatedly onto a primed canvas. After the paste dried, many layers of acrylic paint washes were applied. Buried about halfway in is a second layer of fiber paste hand prints, as well.

While this work may appear to be fairly aggressive because of its color palette and composition, it doesn't feel that way to me. This was a fun, joyful process that felt far more unselfconscious than some of my more recent, genuinely darker stuff.

Happy creating!

Can't Resist This!

2011-05-01T15:02:00.000-05:00

Lynn Krawczyk has been brilliant again and has started a Thermofax Club Of The Month.

To join the club, all you have to do is head over to her etsy shop by clicking the link above and choose one of the icons reading, "2011 Thermofax Screen Of The Month Club." The club gives you exclusive access to six artist-drawn screens that will only be available to club members, delivered to you one each month for six months.

I feel honored to have been asked to create one of the designs myself and I hope that if you've ever wanted to try using these simple and stunningly effective tools, you'll begin here. There are only twelve slots available and then, as Lynn says, "When they are gone, they are gone and memberships won't re-open until the 2012 club!!!"

In other fun news, May was my month to choose the theme for The Sketchbook Challenge and I chose the theme of resists... what do you resist? What do you fail to resist? Come over and tell us- or better yet, show us by also joining along in your own sketchbooks! And don't forget to upload photos and scans of your sketches to our Flickr group to be eligible for some pretty amazing give-aways. And tune in later today to hear our own Carol Sloan give an interview for Artistically Speaking radio.

Happy creating!

Studio Doings

2011-04-28T10:16:00.000-05:00

Life is settling back into a more comfortable routine, and I couldn't be more grateful. I don't think I ever realized just how much a creature of habit I had become until something huge came along to shake up my tidy little world.

My studio lures me as it always has, though my hours spent in it have decreased dramatically. That's okay, though- it makes my creative time more energized and focused.

My design wall is humming with fabric, something it hasn't seen in a few months.

I've kind of gone bananas for using my hand prints as a design motif; I love the large scale straight line/inverted "U" marks they make. I know, I know- I'm not the first artist to discover that I have hands, prehistoric cave wall artists were doing this eons ago- but the lovely simplicity of painting my hand and pressing it to a surface is particularly appealing to me right now, so I'm just going with it.

It led me to thinking of my hand as a discharge agent, so out came some old painted and hand-dyed fabrics.

(36" x 45")

This piece of fabric is nearly two years old. It was originally hand-dyed, and then a simple screen made with contact paper squares was used to add textile paint. I was totally lost after that which direction to take the piece in (I know now what I didn't know then, of course- never start surface design with paint), so it got folded and put away. But this week, it came back out to receive some hand-printed discharge marks.

(detail)

I gloved my right hand, made a discharge pad out of a plastic tray lined with paper toweling soaked in Clorox, and began making impressions all over the fabric. After I had reached the discharge effect I was looking for, I plunged the piece into cold water, rinsed it thoroughly, and neutralized the bleach.

Now it wants to come out and play with the other pieces on my design wall, some of which were also discharged in the same manner using my palm prints.

In other news, the basil is doing beautifully... maybe next year I'll try growing some other herbs.

I signed up for another year with the Brooklyn Art Library to do The Sketchbook Project 2012. I chose the theme "Writing On The Wall" and when it arrives and I start working on it, I'll post photos to keep you updated. I hope everyone reading will seriously consider getting involved in this awesome project!

And finally, May is my month to choose the theme for The Sketchbook Challenge. I hope you'll join me over there, and work along in your own books with me and my fellow artists!

Happy living!

Dear You: Thank You

2011-04-25T16:30:00.004-05:00

A while back I suggested to a friend that she might want to work a particular design she was developing into a larger format art piece. It took nearly a week for me to click to the fact that while I was extolling her to work larger, I, myself had begun working smaller. Much, much smaller.

I don't regret doing it at all, some deeply intimate and heartfelt art has come from this period, but I feel that I can hardly recommend something that I'm not willing to risk doing, myself. And working large has become a risk to me, more than I would have thought possible- years past, all my work was huge and it never intimidated me. But I have to admit that my confidence has been shaken by events of the past eight to ten months, and working in a large format seemed to me like an excellent opportunity to fail on a grand scale.

Still, pushing myself to work in areas that frighten or intimidate me has become one of my favorite ways of taking myself in surprising directions. I never know exactly what the outcome of a professional or creative risk is going to be, but even if it's a raging disaster, there's a lot of information to be mined from such events.

In that spirit, I recently broke out two large canvases from my very earliest days of experimenting with painting. These old pieces didn't look like art to me and more importantly, they didn't feel like art and never really had. The frugal artist in me won out over the archivist who wants to save everything, and I Gesso'd both pieces within an inch of their lives before starting them over again.

This is what emerged from my studio this afternoon.

"Dear You: Thank You"

30" x 40"

India ink, acrylics, Stacked Journaling

on stretched artist canvas

There are some very special people in my life who have spent a great deal of time and energy in the last few months talking me down from the ceiling, people without whom I would have not have been able to manage. This letter, written with love to each and every one of them, is one of the ways I would like to try and thank them. They make the risk worth everything.

Happy creating!

Dear Mom

2011-04-18T08:51:00.003-05:00

Seriously, these Stacked Journaling art letters are out of control!

But some of them, like this piece, are evolving away from angsty journaling and are becoming much more fun to write. This one is to my Mom, in a very 12-year-old-away-at-camp style with a lot of "You're the best Mom ever!" kinds of sentiments.

Thanks for everything, Mom. And you know what I mean- for everything.

("Dear Mom: Best Mom Ever!" acrylics, India ink on paper)

Grafitti-esque Stacked Journaling

2011-04-13T14:32:00.000-05:00

No heavy emotional context to this piece, just some fun playing with the graffiti-esque quality of Stacked Journaling. This is super white, heavy card stock layered with paints, India ink and Thermofax screens.

Dear Greg: Hero

2011-04-12T12:44:00.000-05:00

For the love of my life.

("Dear Greg: Hero")

Some Fun Stuff

2011-04-11T09:27:00.000-05:00

Hard life, blahblahblah, sadness, yaddahyaddahyaddah, I'm so over it. Enough with the seriousness for a day! Here are some fun colors splashed around in utterly inappropriate and irreverent ways on paper of all sizes and weights. Just because I like it.

(Copy Paper, paint, stamping, Thermofax Stacked Journaling)

(Deli paper, paint)

(Copy paper, paint, Thermofax)

(My work surface, when I was done painting)

And because it made me laugh when I was writing it, a Stacked Journaling art letter written to the Universe, asking that our two favorite restaurants pretty-please-with-a-cherry not shut down...

Happy creating!

More Letters and Some Necessary Discomfort

2011-04-06T13:40:00.004-05:00

For a while all of the Stacked Journaling art letters I composed were written to my father, who has mostly gone beyond understanding the emotions and sentiments contained within them. In a weird, serendipitous way, his memory loss freed me to write what I needed to, all of the things I needed to say to him, all of the fears and hopes I have for him. I'm proud of those pieces, but as hard as they were to write, they were easy to display here on my blog to all of you because I knew Dad would never see them or wonder what was contained in them.

As I continued to produce various mixed-media art letters to my father, I began to realize that I wanted to write to other people in my life as well; that I have secrets and messages to impart to them, too. Hence the Stacked Journaling canvases I blogged about a couple of weeks ago, which were written not to my father, but to a childhood friend.

That trend continues, and this is where I'm really going to go out on a limb: one of the the art letters I'm blogging about today is written to one of my brothers and it doesn't exactly contain loving, warm feelings. There's some pretty dark stuff buried in this piece, which makes me feel quite vulnerable displaying it. Unlike the letters written to my father, I know there's a chance my brother could see it and understand what it says, if only instinctively. I risk making a bad situation worse.

But risk and pushing myself is something I've come to rely on as a path of growth, and I'm willing to own my responsibilities and choices, so here goes.

("Dear Dave: Remember Me?" 18" x 24"

300# watercolor paper, acrylic paint,

quill pen and India ink journaling)

And in the spirit of being totally fair and honest with myself, here's an art letter I wrote to me.

Like the letter to my brother, it contains some fairly dark material. The good news is that the more of these I do, the better I feel because the emotions are being released into art where they can't do any more damage.

("Dear Judi: Wake Up!" 7" x 10 1/2 "

Heavy tag, thinned India inks and paints,

quill pen and India ink journaling)

While packing my father's belongings for his move to Texas, I came across a stack of lovely white, heavy tag measuring 7" x 10 1/2". He had no idea why he had it or what it was used for but he offered it to me, and being a total paper geek, I pounced on it. I suspect it's backer board for archivaly storing comic books because I not only found clear cellophane envelopes in the same size, I also found comic books he was obviously buying and trying to archive back in the 90's.

Score! As you can see from the photograph, this stuff sucks up pigment in the most lovely way. It also refuses to cockle even when soaked with wet media and because I think it's meant to protect comic books, I'm pretty sure it's got to be acid-free. All the fibers stain differently, which makes blending a breeze and offers a wonderful, mottled appearance. I think I might have to bind this stuff into a sketchbook, it's fabulous.

Move on, create with lightness,

Judi

On My Way Out The Door

2011-03-25T09:45:00.003-05:00

My husband and I are on our way to get my father, who lives in Pennsylvania, and bring him to live here in TX near us in an assisted living facility. He doesn't want to come, he doesn't even think there's anything wrong with him, but he's being compliant and I, like a dutiful daughter, have been dismantling his old life and trying to rebuild a new one for him here. It's a dreadful task that no one should ever have to undertake, telling your parent that it's time to let you have the reins of their life.

Art is getting made, though, in almost a frenzy of anger and exhaustion. Here are two Stacked Journaling pieces I will be taking to my childhood best friend in Pennsylvania. She's terribly ill with Diabetes and could use a little brightness in her home. These small canvases in her favorite colors- green and blue- contain stacked messages of love, healing and sisterhood.

And another stacked letter to my father I'm working through in my journal before translating it to a stretched canvas.

(Dear Dad: Confusion)

Hope your weekend is happy and creative.

Dear Dad

2011-03-10T13:43:00.003-06:00

Two paintings out of three (so far) in an ongoing series dealing with my fear and uncertainty surrounding my father's recently diagnosed Alzheimer's.

("Dear Dad: Regret", 11" x 14", acrylics, India ink, Stacked Journaling on stretched canvas)

("Dear Dad: Anger", 14" x 18", acrylics, India ink, Stacked Journaling on stretched canvas)

And finally, a piece (not part of the series shown above) that refuses to resolve itself and as punishment is being forced to show itself to the world in this blog post.

(24" x 30", deconstructed screen printed fabric, hand-dyed fabric, pastels, colored pencils on stretched canvas)

I Really Am Alive!

2011-03-04T13:56:00.002-06:00

I know I haven't been posting many blog updates and I sincerely apologize for that! I am working, though!

In my search for better and more diverse methods of getting Stacked Journaling to paper and fabric, I have stumbled upon my new favorite toys- quills, nibs and India inks.

These things are absolutely wonderful to work with. The quills and nibs take almost no practice to get used to using, and you can be writing in your normal hand within just a few minutes. The India inks are super permanent once dry- I've not found a way yet to remove them- though they can be obliterated with layers of acrylic paint. They are all vivid and bright, and come in an incredible array of both warm and cool colors as well as black and white.

The nibs come in many sizes and shapes, depending on what you want to do with them. Since I started out mostly wanting very fine line detail, I've purchased and been using round tips.

I've been experimenting with the inks as well (I'm using Dr. Ph. Martin's Bombay India Inks) and have found that their relationship with water is quirky. This can be used to beautiful effect if you're willing to play around a little.

Here is the ink on dry watercolor paper. Very fine lines and excellent detail can be achieved with very little effort.

Here ink was applied to watercolor paper when the paper was only slightly damp.

And here, the paper was allowed to get very wet, with spots of water sitting on the surface.

Here the ink was applied onto dry paper but then spritzed lightly with water.

Here are two colors of ink applied to damp paper...

And two colors applied to dry paper.

I've even found them particularly effective on properly primed stretched canvases. Here, I've journaled a letter to my father. This is a sneak peek of a new series I'm starting.

I have yet to find a fabric that is smooth enough to get the kind of line work I'm looking for, but my search isn't over for the perfect cotton on which to try Stacked Journaling using quill, nibs and ink.

My studio is about to undergo another major change, this time to accommodate a larger tall print table, this one 4' by 7'. In the meantime while I wait for that to be put into place, I've been using the time to work through a lot more small scale mixed-media work.

I've installed paneling in my large watercolor sketchbook! This started with a layer of Elmer's school glue drawn directly out of the bottle onto the page to create a wood grain appearance. Layers and layers of acrylic paint were applied after the glue dried to give it a worn, rich texture.

The piece shown above was created using lightweight paper that was fused to Lutradur and then "batik'd" repeatedly. I applied rubber cement to a foam stamp, stamped a layer onto the paper, covered it with a wash of color, stamped another layer of rubber cement followed by another wash of color, and so forth until I achieved the effect you see. After everything was fully dry, I gently rubbed away the layers of rubber cement and mounted the whole thing onto a stretched canvas.

Here's hoping your weekend is fun. Happy creating!

Too Matchy-Matchy?

2011-02-27T08:00:00.000-06:00

Hi all, this is my posting today over on The Sketchbook Challenge blog.

I love to bring opposites into play in my work when things get a little too copacetic. I'm always drawn to analogous color schemes, but by the time I get everything looking all happy and cooperative, I'm bored stiff with the composition. That's when it's time to liven things up by going off the rails and adding something totally unexpected.

A good example is the two-page spread above. Everything was getting along too well, not to mention that I really disliked the page on the left.

After puttering around with some tissue and paints, I created a highly contrasting sheet of paper, which I then adhered onto the offending page with rubber cement.

Now the spread has more character.

I extended my collaged sheet over onto the right-hand page a tad, just to marry them a little more. They are certainly opposites- a cool blue/green and a warm russet/orange- but they also relate somewhat in that they were both heavily layered with the same paint colors and using the same stamping tool. I have no doubt that later they will call for something more dramatic to bind them together, but for today, this spread is incomplete and will make a wonderful background for future imagery.

More "opposites" work in my sketchbook included both opposites in composition and in color.

Here, a heavily painted collage sheet (left) is paired with a paper towel remnant (right) that had been used to mop up green/blue paint. The piece on the left is created with unnatural colors in garish combinations (my favorite kind of mixed-media art to create, quite frankly!) while the piece on the right is almost pastoral and looks as if it could have been monoprinted directly from leaves taken from my backyard. Like the one above it, this spread is incomplete.

Color opposites find harmony in my sketchbooks... here, painted paper and hand-dyed fabrics that have been doodled on with Pentel Gel Fabric Pens.

Scraps of fabric previously used for experimentation are always welcome in my sketchbooks, too. Here, purple and yellow- opposites who famously don't usually work and play well together- share space without dominating one another.

More temperature opposites, turquoise and yellow, mirror each other from one side of the sketchbook to the other, the left one done with layers of paint while the right comprises layers of stacked journaling in yellow and turquoise india ink.

Acrylics

2011-02-18T08:56:00.000-06:00

I haven't painted in forever. It. Was. FUN.

(acrylics on cradleboard)

New Fiber Art!

2011-02-15T09:23:00.001-06:00

I bet you thought I forgot how to make fiber art, didn't you? Well, pshaw!

(hand dyed and painted cotton mounted on stretched canvas, painted cardboard embellishments)

(hand-dyed, deconstructed screen printed and painted cotton and silk mounted on Lutradur backing)

And just because I can't seem to stay away from my sketchbook...

(pear study in acrylics, pastels, colored pencils and hand dyed fabric)

Sketchbook Challenge Theme: Opposites

2011-02-12T08:00:00.004-06:00

The theme this month over on the Sketchbook Challenge blog is Opposites. Here is my post on that subject.

My favorite use of opposites in my work is in creating high contrast with color.

I like to use many, many layers of transparent color (I admit to a weakness for Golden Fluid Acrylics) and one of the beauties of working directly into the pages of a sketchbook is the ability- days, weeks, even months or years later- to work back into the pages, deepening and tweaking the composition. This week, the two-page spread above was reworked for the millionth time with magenta, lemon yellow, and pthalo blue and green to punch up the contrast.

I love to express myself by using colors that are opposites on the color wheel. Fiery oranges and reds contrasting sharply with cool, soothing blues and greens epitomize to me the experience of living on the Gulf Coast of Texas. Here, the extreme heat and sun of spring and summer can only be combated by cool, blue waters. I crave both things equally, and my experience with these two powerful forces of nature inform my most favorite color choices.

As you can see, my sketchbooks are often messy and unruly. I welcome that, encourage it even, and am never happier than when the book becomes grungy with wear, tear, and colors all splashed together.

But my sketchbooks are also incredibly useful tools. For instance, this previous sketch...

... became the inspiration for some new ideas on fabric.

The fabric was painted with MX dyes and then drawn into with Stacked Journaling using a fabric pen. I even used a similar color scheme as I had painted into this sketchbook page, and then emphasized the color contrast (opposite) with black and blue ink.

These types of sketches and samples can be elemental in uncovering your personal color palette, texture choices and favorite design motifs.

Here I did some sketches exploring the idea of using opposites in shapes and colors, and this theme will most likely carry over into future surface design explorations on fabric, just as the "bubble" sketch above did.

Your sketchbook can be the place you escape to when you're stressed for doodling and mind mapping, or it could be a genuine work of art, or it could simply be a utility that moves you along on your way to bigger and more detailed design ideas!

More ArtHouse Co-Op Fun

2011-02-10T17:24:00.003-06:00

I so thoroughly enjoyed my participation in The Sketchbook Project last year that I've decided to sign up for another project also hosted by The Brooklyn Art Library called AMLP: Photomobile (AMLP= A Million Little Pictures.)

If you sign up for the project, you are offered many different possible themes (I chose "Captured In Time...") and are sent a disposable camera containing twenty-seven shots. Fill the camera with your version of your chosen theme, send it back to them, and one photo from each camera will be taken on a national tour this fall! Sign-up before March 31st, 2011 and mail your camera back by June 15th, 2011.

Simple and fun, right? Who's joining me?

Print Table Of Love

2011-01-26T11:44:00.001-06:00

The studio is humming this week!

But the news that I'm having the most fun with this week is that I've found a brilliant way to utilize wasted space.

For a long time, I've had a small homemade table, approximately 31" x 46", sitting at the end of my primary work table. I've used it mostly as horizontal drying space and horizontal storage space... frankly, it was simply too low and I am too tall for it to be of much use for anything else. (Ten extra Brownie points to anyone who remembers what I used to have in that space and how I rigged it to provide a flat surface when needed!)

Last year when Greg and I originally built the table we used half inch melamine-covered plywood cut to size (any Hardware Big Box store will do this for you for free), and four telescoping legs from Ikea. The whole thing cost less than 50.00 and because the legs came with all their own hardware, took all of about 30 minutes to assemble. Of course, then I threw a tarp over it and forgot about the legs. The ones that, yanno, telescope.

This weekend, giving in to the demands of my back, I put my mind to the task of devising a tall print table. Predictably, it took me most of a full day to remember the table with t-e-l-e-s-c-o-p-i-n-g legs. Greg and I flipped the table over, pulled the legs out to their furthest position, and locked them in place. Presto, instant tall print table with bonus mondo storage space underneath.

Ok, so here it's not shown being used a a print table so much as an ironing station. Did I forget to mention how handy it is for that? As well as for photographing stuff. Painting stuff. Admiring stuff I've painted. You get the idea: basically it's just handy as snot.

Something fun I did this week on my shiny wonderful miraculous new print table with the telescoping legs was a little bleach discharge with a Thermofax screen and a Clorox Bleach gel pen.

While the pen does provide a narrow point that you could, if you were careful, write onto fabric with, I found it more useful to squeeze the gel out of the container into the well of my screen and pull it across the fabric with a squeegee. The consistency of the gel is absolutely perfect for this application.

(the pale brown areas were "discharged", or had their color chemically removed)

And it discharges hand-dyed fabrics beautifully. Of course, it's bleach so it still needs to be treated with care... If you're going to try this, wear a mask and gloves, please, and work in a well-ventilated room! The bleach also must be neutralized when using it to discharge fabric or it WILL eventually eat through the fibers.

And yes, that's stacked journaling in the photo shown above. Fun, fun.

I feel like I'm back in the saddle again! Happy creating!

Again With The Good News, Bad News Thing!

2011-01-20T20:39:00.001-06:00

Well, things have changed pretty substantially since I blogged at the beginning of the year. The bad news first: I won't be attending Jane Dunnewold's Art Cloth Masteries class, after all. It feels awful to even type that, but there it is.

The good news is that I will once again be able to blog at will and read my favorite blogs again, something I had given up simply due to time constraints. But those constraints are no longer an issue, and you should start seeing me pop up in your comments more frequently than I have for the last few months.

I'm still weighing my options for what my future might hold and where I'd like to take my career, but for now, for a few days at least, I've been taking some "me" time. That's very good news for my sketchbook, as is has been welded to my hand for the last few days.

I'm working through my ideas for where I want to take my stacked journaling design idea, and what better place to do that than in the pages of a good, loyal sketchbook?

The page above was created with Fineline markers and stacked journaling- the word green, to be exact, which is what created the loopy bits to the outsides of the leaves and the great texture in both the leaves and the stem. So far I haven't found any design that I haven't been able to enhance with some form of stacked journaling.

Here, stacked journaling was screened onto a previously painted sketchbook page using a Thermofax screen and black textile paint.

Stacked journaling was used here to create shapes on fabric which was then mounted into my sketchbook with fluid matte medium and "coffee stained" with fluid acrylic paint.

Creating contrast against a brightly painted background....

More screening of stacked journaling, adding depth to a previously sketched, screened, and painted page...

Stacked journaling on top of the existing text and Notan-like design of an old, yellowed telephone book page, cut and mounted into my sketchbook....

As you can see, I use my sketchbooks to do more than sketch. They are the incubator of ideas which will grow and develop organically, as I work each page in my own particular way.

I hope you'll come show us some of your sketchbook's "particular ways" at The Sketchbook Challenge .

Fun Car Is Fun!

2011-01-04T09:05:00.001-06:00

And Highly Prized, which just happens to be the theme for this month's Sketchbook Challenge.

This is my zippy little two-seater Altima.

She just got paid off last October and after our three-year companionship, I think she and I understand each other brilliantly. She'll be with me for as long as she can roll down the road. Her name is Fun Car because... well... because she really, really is.

This is my zippy little stacked journaling sketch of my Highly Prized Fun Car.

I lightly sketched in the outline and added the blunt details with pencil. Then I stacked journaling inside the details with Steadler Triplus Fineliner pens.

This week also sees me preparing for a week-long independent study group I'll be attending this month with my masteries instructor, Jane Dunnewold. I've been doing a little 'old fashioned' fabric dyeing- using my washing machine to dye yardage of pale-value solids in several different primaries.

I spent a lot of time making sure that my machine would be appropriate for dying a good solid color. I measured the water temperatures before and after each agitation cycle, and then timed the cycles themselves. Turns out that all necessary factors were in perfect balance for full immersion dyeing, so I launched into it.

The first two pieces came out of the machine with a soft, even color across the length of the fabric. I have no reason to think the other two I do today won't be just as beautiful. I wish I'd known how easy it would be to achieve a true solid just by using my machine- I'd probably have done bolts of fabric this way by now! My hope is to continue to layer color, imagery and text onto these pieces throughout the indy study week.

I hope your new year is filled with fun, creativity and laughter!

More Stacked Text

2010-12-31T10:19:00.001-06:00

This time, in color...

("Inside/Outside", watercolor paper, 18" x 24")

Sketchbook Studies

2010-12-27T10:38:00.000-06:00

In preparation for the first prompt (coming on 1-1-2011) for The Sketchbook Challenge, I have been puttering with my sketchbooks during my holiday vacation and I thought I'd share some of it with you.

I'm developing texture studies to use in my Masteries class with Jane Dunnewold and have been playing with my own hand writing in both large and small formats.

The design wall is currently covered with these studies.

The idea to stack text came as I was doodling in this little beauty, a hand-made, fused-silk covered journal gifted to me a while back by Sue B.

Inside, while working on improving my handwriting before moving it to fabric, I began to be fascinated by the shapes, whorls, and sharp lines of text and the way one word looks when sketched directly on top of another.

I started with the basics, stacking the same nonsense word on top of itself, turning the page this way and that as I wrote. Interesting textures developed.

These led me to wonder about creating shapes using this simple technique.

I was happy with my results and began to think that some of them looked like graffiti.

I've long wished to "tag" my own name, and I know there are classes being offered online to help you learn to do that, but I've never taken the time to look into any of them. So I started playing independently with my own name and voila, a tag is born.

Finally, to play with even more text, I began stacking journaling on top of paper that's already been printed on, like telephone book pages.

Now I just need Jane to help me interpret all of this onto fabric!

Happy creating and hope to see you on 1-1-2011 for our first prompt! - Judi

Welcome to the Sketchbook Challenge!

2010-12-06T16:13:00.003-06:00

So you want to start keeping a sketchbook but every time you sit down with a book in front of you and pencil in hand you freeze up and just can't seem to get started. Wouldn't it be helpful to be able to get a glimpse inside another artists sketchbook to see how they use theirs? Well you're in luck because help is on the way!

The Sketchbook Challenge is a new project launching on 1/1/2011. Follow along with us as we fill our sketchbooks based on a monthly theme that will be announced on the first of each month.

You'll be sketching alongside:

Jill Berry
Sue Bleiweiss
Laura Cater-Woods
Jane Davies
Jamie Fingal
Judi Hurwitt
Leslie Tucker Jenison
Lyric Kinard
Jane LaFazio
Kelli Perkins
Carol Sloan
Carla Sonheim
Susan Sorrell
Melanie Testa
Diana Trout
Violette

Each month we'll announce a new theme on our blog and throughout the month we'll be showing you images from our sketchbooks and talking about the intention and inspiration behind them. Along the way we'll be sharing tips, techniques and tutorials. We hope that by giving you a peek inside our sketchbooks and showing you how different they all are that we'll inspire you to start keeping a sketchbook of your own. And of course if you do, we'll want to see some photos of your book too so we've designed a blog badge for you to put on your own blog to show your participation in the project. You can download the badge here.

We encourage you to post photos of your sketchbook pages on your blog and then post a link in the comment section of the Sketchbook Challenge blog so that others can look at your pages too!

And that's not all! Thanks to the generosity of some terrific sponsors we'll be doing some givewaways and special shopping offers too!

So pick up your blog badge here, go grab a sketchbook, some pencils, pens, markers or paints and get ready to sketch with us!

I Bet You Thought I'd Vanished!

2010-12-02T11:46:00.003-06:00

I haven't, though my desktop computer (the one I blog on, naturally), took a holiday vacation for more than a week leaving me with nothing to browse the web but my beloved iPad. A fun toy to be sure, but not a gadget you want to rely on for absolutely everything.

But I'm reconnected to the world again, and during my near-total absence from online doings, I got a lot of work done.

As part of my course work for Jane, I've been reading and following along with a book by Rolina van Vliet called Painting Abstracts: Ideas, Projects and Techniques. The book emphasizes painting abstracts in a more structured fashion, something I've never really done before: my abstract painting has always been accomplished by the seat of my pants as I react and respond to the color landing on the substrate. I've never tried to pre-plan my painting, but this book is helping me learn ways to work more deliberately.

Most of the studies I'm doing, based on the suggested lessons in the book, are on heavy watercolor paper (300#).

I've been using all manner of mediums, from acrylic paints, to watercolors, to charcoal and pastels.

I find painting to be a joyful activity, so even though the manner in which these pieces is constructed is totally different from my usual methods, it's no hardship to break out the paints and paper.

And having so much paint on my palette always lends itself to lovely monoprinting.

Last week also saw me playing with this beauty, an antique copper tjap I scored from Dharma Trading a few weeks ago.

They are somewhat rare and somewhat pricey when they do become available, which is why I've never acquired one before. They're also tricky as hell to learn how to use! This tjap alone, measuring about 5" x 3", soaks up so much wax that it wants to flood the fabric the instant it touches down. Still, it produces a beautiful pattern.

The piece above was created on white cotton duck and then painted with Dye-Na-Flow before the wax was removed.

Using another piece of the same duck, I also created this piece, which was likewise painted first with Dye-Na-Flow and then screened with textile paint.

Finally, I thought I'd share some goofy texture sketches I've been doing, also at Jane's direction.

To me, they look like eyes.

This little sketch...

... was inspired by this photo I took while in NJ.

Happy Creating!

New Screens

2010-11-15T10:37:00.000-06:00

I sent off thirteen new screen designs to my friend Lynn Krawczyk, who will do her magic on them and turn them into Thermofax screens for me. I used an iPad app called MirrorPaint to create these designs.

‎

Design Wall

2010-11-13T19:55:00.005-06:00

Almost a year ago, I began my studio remodel. The construction work was finished within a couple of months and I began working in there right away, but I was missing one key element: a large, padded design wall.

Right from the start, I set aside some blank wall space and began my research of construction methods and materials.

The space, measuring approximately seven by seven feet, remained blank this entire time while I vacillated back and forth about what kind of wall I wanted. Finally I made my decision- a double-thickness of rigid foam insulation mounted into the studs, covered first in batting and then in white fabric- and work began on it last weekend.

We bought 4 sheets of the foam insulation, cutting two of them to 7'x4' and the other two to 3'x4', in order to fit the space. The beauty of this material is that it's tongue and groove, which means that each sheets fits seamlessly into the next.

We glued the sheets together with a Styrofoam-friendly adhesive and left them to cure over night.

I couldn't help but do a dry run to get an idea of how they'd look on the wall.

After the adhesive had cured, it was time to find the wall studs...

(found one!)

... and hang the first piece...

The second piece slid right into place in the groove of the first one...

... and all of it was held in place with 3" wood screws and over-sized washers.

Next, using spray fabric adhesive and t-pins, we attached large sheets of cotton batting.

The final layer, a white, queen-sized flat sheet, was attached in the same manner and trimmed to fit.

And I finally have a proper design wall! Thanks for all your help, honey!!

Seeking Notan

2010-11-04T16:24:00.000-05:00

Hand-cut black construction paper glued to sheets of white tag, 18" x 12".

Life and Art

2010-10-31T17:28:00.002-05:00

When I started this blog more than a year ago, I made a vow to myself that I would try to keep my personal life out of it as much as possible. No one wants to read about my aging cat's drooling problem, or how many times I saw my favorite Star Trek movie last year, or whether I think oranges are superior to grapes (I don't.) Boring, boring, boring.

I vowed instead to start a conversation with fellow artists about process, color, technique, tools, expression, and design. I want very much to spend time with others who understand my passion for- and almost constant state of surprise and delight with- art and artistic endeavors. I feel utterly fortunate to have achieved that goal, and I look forward to many more years of dialogue and friendship.

However, I'm about to break my, "Only art; no personal stories," vow and tell you a little bit about what's been happening lately because I feel like it will have a direct impact on my art. In fact, I can't see how it won't. (If this personal stuff does bore you to tears, no worries, I'm not insulted... just scroll to the bottom half of this post to see artsy eye candy!)

During our vacation last month to visit our parents in the NE part of the country, it became obvious that my Dad's memory is failing badly. Doctors and lawyers need to be seen and hard decisions will have to be made. To begin that process, I made another trip up there in the middle of last week which I just returned home from yesterday. I feel like I've been living on planes for the last three months!

My life can sometimes be an odd mixture of Really Bad meets Really Good and this short but intense visit with my father was an excellent example. While my reasons for visiting were sad and serious and stressful, Dad and I faced those challenges together... and then went and had fun. Fun for us means getting out into the Pennsylvania hillsides and just driving. We talk, we laugh, we ooh and ahh over the stunning natural beauty, I take tons of photos, and when the day is over, we feel a lot closer to one another. Valuable stuff, especially now.

As an added bonus, the fall color was just past its peak and the leaves gave me ample opportunities for photographs.

The tiny little coal town I grew up in, Tamaqua, was once dirty, run down and depressing. Most of the businesses were struggling, and unemployment was staggeringly high. Today, the town is fighting to come back, and is wisely using its picturesque roots as a jumping off point.

The real jewel of this region, though, lies in its rolling farmlands and forest-covered mountains.

(The graves of two beloved pets, maybe? These were next to a lovely white farmhouse.)

And like the typical up and down swings of Really Bad meets Really Good, the trip came to a stunning conclusion yesterday when, while waiting in the Philadelphia airport to board my flight home, I witnessed Air Force One land right in front of me.

I was sitting in front of a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the tarmac when I heard a tremendous roar. I looked up from my Kindle and saw this magnificent beauty touch down not a hundred feet in front of me and then taxi out of sight.

Only myself and one other person seemed to notice and he got as excited as me. About two minutes later, the plane taxied back into view, moved around the terminal building I was sitting in, and into a small commercial field, where it parked and presumably waited for President Obama- who was evidently speaking at Temple University- to board. I got the above photo of it as it was pulling into that somewhat distant tarmac. I'm still over the moon with excitement!

I'm sure it's pretty obvious by now that my studio time has been sparse, but I am still faithfully plugging away at my assignments for Jane's class as well as getting a little surface design time sandwiched in between everything else.

This bizarre, circus-colored thing, a 36" x 45" piece of cotton Pimatex, was the canvas for some deconstructed screen printing.

Taken as a whole, it's pretty scary; it's a prime candidate for using bits and pieces of it in fabric collages.

This piece, a 36" x 62" length of cotton broadcloth, also got the deconstructed screen printing treatment but so far it isn't thrilling me.

The colors are weak and paste-ly, but it may be an excellent launching pad for more detailed surface design later with colored pencils, pastels and paint.

I did something quite fun with it, though, and wound up having a bunch of interesting color palettes to aim for in the future: I ran the photograph of the full piece through some of the filters in Photoshop Elements and came up with these interesting variations.

They can be used for all kinds of things, including being printed onto paper and then worked into collaged art. One of them might even end up as my next blog banner, who knows?

Happy Halloween and happy creating!

Busier and Busier

2010-10-13T19:36:00.000-05:00

Ever since I returned from New Jersey almost two weeks ago, I've been kicking butt and taking names in the studio. Every morning and much of every afternoon is now taken up with assignments for my masteries program: reading, or dyeing samples, or reading or... well, there just a lot of both of those things!

This week in my spare time (did I actually just say I have spare time??), I did some deconstructed screen printing using these screens. All in all, I'm pleased with the results. I used some new dyes I just got from Pro Chem, three primaries from Carol's "basics" family: golden yellow, mixing red, and intense blue.

The screens, which had previously been charged with black dye, were deconstructed onto one yard lengths of white cotton sateen, 45" selvage to selvage.

(yellow/red before washout)

(after washout)

(detail)

(yellow/blue before washout)

(yellow/blue after washout)

(detail)

(red/blue before washout)

(red/blue after washout)

(detail)

All of the above is Stuff On The Good News Side. On the Bad News Side, I am so sorry to announce that I will very likely be blogging less than I used to. I have loved blogging and the friendships and connections I've made because of it, and I don't have plans to stop nearly yet- but recent and sudden family health issues, combined with the intense workload of my masteries program, are conspiring to pull my focus away from online pursuits and towards life issues.

I will still try to blog once a week about what's keeping me occupied and what artsy-fartsy things I'm up to, so it isn't 'goodbye' by any means... just a bit of a slow-down. Hope like crazy that you'll stick with me through these busy times!

In the meantime, happy creating!!

Dharma-Giveaway Winners!

2010-10-09T08:50:00.000-05:00

Wow, such a huge response for my Dharma-sponsored giveaway, thank you all for taking the time to check out both this amazing site and my blog! And a HUGE thank you to The Dharma Trading Company, for so generously donating not one, but two fantastic dyeing kits!! You guys ROCK!

The two winners, chosen randomly, are:

Sandy and Anita!!

I will be sending your contact info to the patient and kindly Dharma rep who has been so very helpful with this contest and you should be hearing from them, soon!

Home Again and Studio Doings

2010-10-07T14:30:00.004-05:00

After countless cities, airplanes and hotel rooms jammed into one five-week period, we're finally home again. I'd tell you all about it, but a vacation is usually only interesting to the people taking it. But if you're really dying to know, here are some of the photos I took on my various travels, knock yourselves out!

Monday saw me back in the studio and I have to admit, after being out of it for so long, it felt a little foreign to me, like it was someone else's space. To get back into the groove, I charged more screens with thickened black dye.

These guys were done simply enough... I thickened my dye by adding Jet Black dye powder to clear print paste, putting it into a syringe with a very narrow tip, and drawing it onto the screens. Then they sat in the driveway all afternoon to bake in the sun.

Can I admit that I always, always, always seem to make far more thickened black dye than I can use in one session? As a result, I find myself scrambling to prepare more fabric to use it on, rather than put the excess down the drain.

Because I had so danged much left over, I tried a technique written about by Leslie Tucker Jenison in the Oct/Nov 2010 issue of Quilting Arts.

In the article, Leslie uses tiny scraps of paper, MX dyes and silk screens to create interesting textures on fabric. I only slightly modified this technique by using scraps of cotton fabric, which I cut with a pinking blade in my rotary cutter.

I used long, narrow scraps of Pimatex to print on and then, as Leslie demonstrated, scattered the scraps across the unprinted fabric, wet out the screen with my thickened dye and continued to print down the length of the cloth.

The two on the right were printed using Leslie's method and the piece on the left is a monoprint taken from the paper that had been placed under the fabric before printing. Pretty neat results, and instead of washing all that great dye and texture out of the screen, I left the bits of fabric stuck to it, left it with the others to dry in the sun, peeled away the scraps, and will use it later in the week to do some deconstructed screen printing.

And lastly, there are only two days left to sign up for my Dharma-sponsored give-away. On Saturday, October 9, two names will be chosen by a random number generator to receive one of these fantastic dye kits. All you have to do to be eligible for the drawing is to comment on this post.

Until Saturday, happy creating!

One More Time Into The Blue

2010-09-22T11:16:00.001-05:00

On Friday, we'll be off to visit family in the NE part of the country and won't be back until October 3rd. However, my Dharma-sponsored give-away is still going strong and I will be answering all emails that arrive during my vacation, so please go check it out and tell your friends. There are two fantastic dyeing kits to give to two readers, so sign up!

In the meantime, I have posted a bunch of new photos over on my photography blog. Hope you enjoy, and I'll see all of you in two weeks!!

A Dharma-Sponsored Give-Away!!

2010-09-18T09:44:00.000-05:00

I'm home from the Bahamas (more on that in another post), and I can't tell you how excited I am to offer you a new give-away. The lovely folks at Dharma Trading Company have teamed up with Approachable Art (yeah, that's me!) to offer my readers TWO fantastic gifts.

Are you new to dyeing and have always wanted to dive in, but been afraid of not having the supplies and instructions you need? Are you an experienced dyer who just loves getting more dye tools and books? Then you're going to love this! Dharma is offering not one but TWO of these fabulous dye kits to two lucky readers.

This is an amazing kit that contains the following goodies:

• 1 oz. #1 Lemon Yellow Dharma Fiber Reactive Dye

• 1 oz. #13 Fuchsia Dharma Fiber Reactive Dye

• 1 oz. #25 Turquoise Dharma Fiber Reactive Dye

• 1 lb. Soda Ash Fixer

• 1 lb. Urea

• 4 oz. Professional Textile Detergent

• 1 pair Rubber Gloves

• 1 Dust Mask

• 1 "Color by Accident" book (List Price $24.95)

• 1 Set of general dyeing instructions

Not only will you receive all the necessary auxiliary chemicals needed to dye fabrics, AND three cool primary colors that you can mix and match to create nearly any color, you'll also get the fabulous book, Color By Accident, by author and artist, Ann Johnson.

This is an incredibly generous gift donated by Dharma, and I want to thank them for being so kind as to consider my blog worthy of this give-away!

So here's how it will work. Between now and October 9th, 2010, leave ONE comment on this blog post telling me why you want to learn to dye fabrics, OR why you already love to dye fabrics, OR why you love Dharma Trading Company, and your name will go into the pool of contestants. On October 9th, I will use a random number generator to choose TWO names from the comments to receive these kits and I will connect you with Dharma representatives to set up shipping.

You MUST either leave your email address in your comment OR have your email abilities turned ON through your blog or web site so that you can be contacted about winning! If you don't leave me some way to find you when the contest is over, I will be forced to immediately draw a new name from the comments!

So let the games begin, and good luck to everyone!!

The Book

2010-09-07T08:49:00.007-05:00

Late Saturday night, I returned from my incredibly intensive workshop with Carol Soderlund, Color Mixing For Dyers. I attended this class with eight other adventurous and hard-working ladies at the Fabrications Retreat in Kalamazoo, MI.

I have to tell you, if you love fabric dyeing and want to take your work to a whole new level, this is the class to take. And if you love hanging out with creative women, laughing, eating great food, and getting messy in groups, run-don't-walk to Cathy Arnett's baby, Fabrications. It was all just so much fun!

Laura Cater-Woods and Teri Springer enjoying breakfast

Deborah Harowitz, Melody Johnson and Carol Soderlund

But as thoroughly enjoyable as the week was, it was also filled with hours and hours of hard work and mind-bending ideas.

Carol teaches dyeing and overdyeing from a 3-dimensional cube model that is astonishing to see when held cradled in her hands. (I'd love to show you a photo of the cube Carol built with wooden blocks and thousands of half-inch squares of dyed fabrics, but since it's her unique take on color, I don't feel that it's my place.) Having only the basic color wheel as my own theory tool, seeing color in a cube model really opened up my mind to a whole new world of possibilities.

The essence of the class teaches and illustrates more than a thousand MX dye recipes through a series of dyeing and overdyeing 9"x9" pieces of white cotton fabric.

Three color families were explored, each starting with a set of three primary colors.

The families, Earth Tones, Brights and Basics, were stacked into piles and then cut into strips.

Everyone got a stack of strips from each bundle- dozens and dozens of them- and then we set to cutting the strips into one-inch squares and mounting them in our books.

Helen, cutting her squares.

Deb, studiously working.

Janice, playing it safe.

And check out Carol's t-shirt! She wore a different, eye-popping hand-dyed shirt every day!

My book isn't totally complete yet, I have about 3 hours worth of work to finish it, but I will do that this week. I want to have the decks cleared when my first Masteries assignment arrives on October 1.

(EDIT: O O O O O go look at Lynn's post on the class, too... and please ignore the fat lady in the stripedy, messy studio smock!)

I stepped out of the hotel only twice during my entire stay in Michigan, but the views I saw from the car showed me beautiful, rolling farmlands and fields.

On the flight back, I was privileged to share the first class cabin with a helper dog, a Golden Retriever named Mia.

She was a beautiful dog with a sweet and loving disposition whom I worshiped instantly.

The coming week will see me hard at work completing my Book but then this weekend, my husband and I will be flying to the Bahamas for a well-deserved vacation. I'm not sure we'll know what to do with ourselves, finally being in the same place at the same time for more than a two-day stretch, but I'm betting we'll remember quickly enough!

I will try to blog once more before we leave, but if I don't, I'll be home by the 17th!

In the meantime, happy creating!