wow, April's flown by, May's here!!

Believe it or not, I've been busy. The best part about April other than my birthday is that my beautiful, artistic sister, Marlene came to visit. We, being artsy, experimented with new techniques. You know, the ones you've read about, bought the supplies that end up sitting on a shelf somewhere. Well, we experimented and had a ball. And laugh, we do laugh. That's how we stay young!

Anyway, among our experiments was one from a book "Breakdown Printing" by Claire Benn and Leslie Morgan. In a nutshell, thickened dye is painted on the back on the screen, allowed to dry and then screen clear thickened paste. Really cool! Need to experiment more - all in good time. We tried "Tray Dyeing" by the same authors. That was fun as well. I just had to use up old concentrated dyes that have been sitting in my studio refrigerator for 9 + months. I thought the dye would be weak - not so! We did some monoprinting - applying paint to freezer paper palette, making marks and then laying fabric on top and brayer. Another cool!!!! (Can't wait til I can get back to dyeing. Have to use up the new concentrated dye that is occupying my refrigerator again.) Oh, we filled our days and evenings up. What a grand time we had. We are so lucky to have each other.

After Marlene left, I promptly got back to business - had to finish up my wall doll, now named "Wanderlust." She's unique. I'm pleased. I finished up some beach scenes. And created 3 small stenciled and stamped pieces: one shrimp(Isle of Eight Flags Shrimpfest, Fernandina Beach, Florida is tomorrow!) and 2 sea turtles. I like them as well.

Tomorrow is Shrimpfest. The weather promises to be pleasure. Hooray!

Then next week, I'm off to Vegas to visit my ballerina daughter for awhile. Gotta plan for some had projects - beading motifs probably.