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.

Enjoying Life at the Beach and ART

Pics of hand dyes and "Palms" card series.

Ahh, what a great weekend! The beach is certainly lovely. Love my morning walks, swimming with my son, and my evening walks with son and his big puppy/dog.

I spent much of the weekend dyeing yards of fabric with my new dyes: burgundy, eggplant, forest green, olive drab, marigold. Did some browns, too (those were mixed and sitting in refrig. I use procion dyes and am rather lazy about the dyeing process. I usually follow Ann Johnson's Color by Accident - value dyeing. I store unused dye concentrate in the refrigerator. Seems to stay fairly potent for a long while. The process is fun until the ironing part. I have never liked ironing. The colors are delicious!!!!! Creating with these fabrics will have to wait until I return from my shows - 2 weeks!!!!

I put an inquiry about how to increase sales on the QuiltArt list and received food for thought. One idea popped up using reproductions of original fiber art. I have used an image a while back of a lighthouse quilt I had made. I printed the image on specially treated fabric, quilted it, embellished with free motion machine embroidery. I did about 5 - and was so bored, I vowed never to do that again. But after reading about reproductions for note cards, I decided to print images on fabric, add torn paper, lace and stitch to note cards - package in 4's - 4 images of a series. Hopefully I can direct folks to these when the larger fiber pieces are out of their budget. I plan to print off a few larger images and mat them as well.

Tomorrow I head off the Virgina Beach Boardwalk Show, Pennsylvania to visit brother/family and mother and then on to Philadelphia for the Manayunk Arts Festival. Jeez, what a trip!

Busy, busy, busy

I've been working hard getting ready for yet another show - well, two, in fact. I'll be heading off to the Boardwalk Art Festival, Virginia Beach, Virgina June 14 - 17. Then after visiting my mom and brother in Pennsylvania, I'm exhibiting in the Manayunk Arts Festival, Philadelphia, PA. June 23 - 24. So, I've been making some of my small pieces that are my "Bread and Butter." I've made 6 small sunrise/beach scenes. The sky fabrics are digital photos printed on specially treated fabric. The water and sand are my own hand-dyes. They're placed in black cardboard frames. I also completed a bunch of my beach scene pins - these are miniatures of my larger pieces. I add free motion machine embroidered palm trees, sea oats, etc. and add a turtle bead. These I sell frequently at a local gallery as well as at art fairs.

As one of the pics show, I've been playing with bleach - actually Clorox Clean Up spray - on black fabric. Wish I documented where I bought that black. I just love the color!!! Will be piecing bits and pieces into a wall hanging! The other pic is a remake - I've been redoing this piece for awhile - think I'm happy with it now. I stretched it onto a wood frame.

I'll be dyeing fabric today. I just received some new dyes I'd like to use in a series of leaf prints.