Week 4 in the Studio - I'm Starting to Like This....

While in the studio today, I was thinking about what to post in this blog and finding myself looking forward to it! Normally I'd be dreading what I could write about...now I'm excited by what I've done  - not much this week.

Let's see...we had a snow storm...and I forgot to take the pretty pictures!

Then a day without power, although I did a Zoom call using the hotspot on my husbands cell phone - not great, but it got done!

So just a couple days in the studio - trying things out, experimenting and testing!

First I prepped some tubes for shibori dyeing ... and no, I did not drink all of that!

and did a couple of colours....I have a mostly unused lamp that is good for drying the tubes. The fabric will have at least one more dye bath but they have to dry in between.

Then I painted some papers, getting ready to make some vessels for an upcoming show. Lots of ink and using masking fluid for lighter lines.

The papers were combined with dyed silk into a vessel, a whole new learning curve! I searched on YouTube for paper bowls but didn't find what I wanted, eventually I looked for potters cutting clay slabs into different forms and tried out one shape, similar to a Maltese Cross! I found a few other shapes by the same potter that I'm excited to try!

The corners are cut out and then the edges are overlapped and stitched in place.

The bowl is very light and delicate and provides an interesting form - well worth further explorations!

I also had a FaceTime art session with my granddaughter - do you like my puppy?

I had taken the black and white piece home (mentioned in my last blog post) and was excited to start working on some cross stitches in heavy black and white thread. After half a dozen stitches I realized that it wasn't what I wanted - darn!

So with a small square as a test piece, I stitched straight lines with invisible thread - didn't like the look of that!

I pulled out some variegated black/grey thread which turned out okay but I preferred the black/grey twist (both are poly threads) and by playing a bit I found I liked the diagonal lines that cross each other at an angle - sort of diamond shapes but the parallel lines are irregularly spaced. It's going to be a LOT of stitching! 

I want to test out the markers and see if they'll come out with water - the fabric had matte medium or gesso applied and I'm not sure if they'll be easy to remove!

And I revived the sourdough starter that had been at the back of the fridge for a very long time...I think this looks good!

Week 2 - My Studio

 Another week that was spent mostly out of the studio - but still art stuff going on...I was busy getting the Cloth to Codex Online Workshop lessons set up on my website. It was fun to revisit some of the videos and look at how I might plan each lesson. Last time they were all on a private Facebook Group and it was fairly straightforward to link to them. Now I need to add more text, still images and edit the videos a bit and set them up as "evergreen" meaning they never expire. AND, there's room for you, I would love to have you join in this creative journey.

You can sign up here:https://www.susanpm.com/2016/11/23/cloth-to-codex/

My Week - My Studio

 Many attempts in writing a blog post where I feel I need to be profound and deep....sigh! But I thought for the next while I'll share my ideas, exercises and experiments in the studio over the past week. I'd love to have feedback and perhaps you have some similar or very different ways of working that you could share with me and other readers.

I've been selling my sketchbooks and totes in local galleries and in my Open Studio, so it was time to paint up some more canvas. I use a 7 oz. unprimed canvas and then paint a layer of clear gesso (diluted 75/25 with water) to provide a good tooth to grab the colours. These are three different colour combinations;

I then add imagery with thermofax screens and stencils over all the canvas, trying to complement the colours and theme of the  background/base colours. Each image takes time to dry, so I usually take a couple days to add enough to satisfy me.

These are the small and medium size sketchbooks that I cover with the painted canvas, I love that each one is different from the other. Cutting different areas of the canvas provides a bit of serendipity!

Then, from the smaller pieces, I back them with felt for coasters. I had precut the pieces and fused to the felt with a bit of a margin, I loved how the black framed the canvas and gave me an idea for making totes or small purses/folios with some black wool....someone else suggested hats and I thought they might have a slight "Cossack" theme to them!

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I was clearing off some papers on the table and thought Id add some more marks with my favourite acrylic ink - Daler & Rowney Indigo - I just used the little dropper thats inside the wee bottle and ran it over the surface of tissue paper. In the one below I then spritzed it with a spray bottle.

Even if it never becomes anything more - I love seeing the colours moved over the paper and bleed around the edges.

These next two were painted on and left to dry - I definitely think they will get more work done - not sure quite yet what that might be!

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My big accomplishment this week was to finish quilting a new piece that has been waiting ever so patiently! I had open studios, some traveling and other commitments so it took a while to get back to it!

Its fairly large - 45" x 60" but lighter than some of my previous work, I tried using Thermore for the batting and it was ever so much easier to get through the machine!

Here it is pined up on the wall, I check over carefully for loose threads and making sure Ive not missed quilting any areas. I am pleased that the difference in batting seems to keep it from distorting and it may not need to be blocked.

Here it is cropped and looking a little tidier. Once I have added the facings I will put it back up, adjust the lights and take the formal "beauty" shots for the website and submissions. I'm still thinking of a title and am leaning towards "On the North Shore" as the photo was taken of the docks on the north shore of Vancouver - any other ideas?

I cut and sewed the strips for the facings and laid them down on my table...I loved the way the neutrals all looked so soft and relaxed...

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I'm cutting you up...yes I am! Every couple of months I take this piece of painted linen from the drawer and put it on the design wall...its about 25" x 35". I want to cut it up into squares and rectangles and I'm trying really, really hard to not make it "too precious" thinking that I'll ruin it....if it doesn't work out I can make something different! Do you find that a struggle too? Fear of Messing Up - FOMU - theres really no reason to think that way, but....

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More Shibori Shiraz....in between times I made more Shibori fabrics using my Shiraz technique - so easy to do with wine bottles and juice jugs....I have a very good blog post explaining my process here: 

http://susanpm.blogspot.com/2020/09/shibori-shiraz.html

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Finally - leaving the best til the last...I'd love for you to take part in my upcoming workshop Cloth to Codex Online - seven weeks of wonderful creating with books, scrolls and folios - jammed with great videos, a private Facebook Group and Zoom meetings - you can get all the details here:

https://www.susanpm.com/2016/11/23/cloth-to-codex/

Not too bad a week, I guess I got quite a bit done and it feels good! How about you?

Shibori Shiraz

My outdoor dye place - I love my sink!

Yes, its been a while and I'm not even going to say why....

But I'm back at it and working at getting my creative mojo happening. This summer was spent dyeing amongst other tasks and I did a LOT of ice dyes, they are gorgeous! I'll do another post sometime and show you the best ones...but I also delved back into Shibori in a small way. 

Since moving to our small island my dye studio is outdoors and really just happens in the summer but last year I made some Shibori that worked very well as water on a quilt and I knew I needed more. So this is a little tutorial to show my version and it involves wine....

1. Buy wine that has a uniform diameter bottle, no bulbous or fancy shape - buy the cheap stuff with a screw top and drink it all!
2. Gather your wine bottles - fill them with water - and the same number of juice jugs, not one or two but at least three bottles and three jugs.

Measure the circumference of the bottle and add 1 1/2". Tear a strip, full width from selvedge to selvedge (no cutting, just tear) that measurement. Sew the fabric into a tube with a scant 1/2" seam allowance.

Pull the fabric tube onto the wine bottle, working from the neck down is generally easier. Place an elastic band at the bottom ( I like the thicker elastics from broccoli), push the tube down as far as you can and secure with another elastic at the bottom.

Mix up a soda solution in a bucket: 1/2 cup soda solution + 1 gallon of warm water, stir well. 

Place each bottle into a juice jug and pour the soda solution into the jug to the top of the fabric and let soak for 20 minutes.

Wearing a particle mask, mix 1 teaspoon of dye powder into 1/2 cup of water and stir well, some powder may float to the top so take a couple minutes to stir well.

I like to vary the intensity of the colour between each jug so I'll put a little bit, 2 tbsp. or so in the first jug, a bit more in the second and then finally the remainder in the last jug. Plunge each bottle gently up and down to get the dye mixed in the jug.

Let the bottles soak in the dye solutions for 2-3 hours then remove and rinse well.

Now comes the fun... there are endless colour and value combinations but I'll walk you through how I can get so much variety in a simple way:

• make 2-3 batches of the dyed tubes, each a different colour - say red, green or blue
• then take one red tube and two blue/green tubes (different values) and put them into a batch of yellow
• from those three put them into a bronze or purple batch
• there's no need to wash the tubes in between dye batches, just rinse, hang to dry and start again with a soda soak for 20 minutes and new dye colour in the solution
• I repeat those steps over and over with different colour combination. Usually I only do three colours on one fabric, sometimes I'll stop at two if I really like them
• one of my favourite is to dye with"indigo" from dharma Trading - it looks like the real thing but is a fibre reactive dye!

Once I have a batch of these tubes I unpick the stitching and I wash them all in the machine on a hot setting with a bit of Synthrapol detergent.

They really do glow beautifully once Ive ironed them ...