finally....a vacation!

 Like so many of you, we've been looking forward to getting away from the same four walls and seeing something outside of our little community! While we're not quite ready to travel internationally, we did want to explore a new place so we chose to travel north on Vancouver Island and visit Port McNeil and nearby islands. 

One thing that drew us up there was a chance to visit the Passagemaker, a retired Royal Canadian Navy Diving Tender which my husband had driven many, many years ago when he was a Clearance Diving Officer in the RCN. Back then, it was known as YDT 9...trust the Navy to give it such a fancy name!

 DH welcomes me aboard!

We explored Alert Bay with a world class Cultural Centre http://www.umista.ca stopped by Telegraph Cove where I had visited over 50 years ago, now a nice tourist stop. We also drove to Port Alice and had a day trip to Malcolm Island and the community of Sointula - settled over 100 years ago by a Finnish immigrants hoping for a perfect, harmonious community. All in all, a lovely trip, even with  three days of almost non-stop rain!

So all this brings me to some photos to share of interesting shapes, angles, textures and then some new art work at the end!

so...onto the new work! As you have seen in previous posts, I've been making multi-coloured shibori fabrics and incorporating them into my art work. In the back of my mind I wanted to create a piece using those fabrics to give the illusion of water, shimmering and reflecting the surroundings....after a few trial runs, I think these two pieces are successful!

Stormy, Stormy Night - 12" x 16"

Stormy, Stormy Night - side view

When the Sun Dances - 12" x 16"

When the Sun Dances - side view

These pieces are now being shown in Surrounded by Water - an invitational exhibition at the Cowichan Valley Arts Council.

I admit that I was nervous working on a wood panel, but it turned out better than I thought and now I'm considering how I might use this same concept of the shibori fabrics put into larger works...stay tuned!

Small Shifts = Exciting Results

 As I have blogged before - my series, Our Salish Sea, has been a wonderful adventure, I have enjoyed exploring using paper and fabric in collage and the sales have been very good.

I have two concurrent shows happening at the end of the month...oh plus... the Studio Tour here on Pender, so I need to increase my inventory BIG time! But I didn't want to do "more of the same" however much I like the theme and the format.

And I have enjoyed using my shibori fabrics as "water" in my recent work so a little experimentation has led to three new pieces with a small shift = exciting results. 

These are 10" x 10" - mounted on wood cradle, I love the size! Message me if you are interested in purchasing, each is $95 CDN

Sometimes just tweaking what is successful provides an opportunity to explore and move in a slightly different direction....I wonder what might be around the corner?

Lookout at Razor Point

Towards Swanson Channel

Side View - Mounted on Wood Cradle

Our Salish Sea

My home on Pender Island is in the middle of the Salish Sea, an inland sea that encompasses Puget Sound, the San Juan Islands and the waters off of Vancouver, BC. The area spans from Olympia, Washington in the south to the Campbell River, British Columbia in the north, and west to Neah Bay and includes the large cities of Seattle and Vancouver. 

Increasingly, the sea and its surrounding watersheds are challenged by an ever-growing list of threats. Ocean acidification, a burgeoning human population, increased marine shipping traffic, and unchecked wastewater and sewage runoff are just a few of the immediate pressures that are endangering this jewel of an ecosystem. If healthy ecosystems foster economic prosperity, unhealthy ones represent lost opportunity and income. Whether we depend upon the ocean for our living or for our quality of life, we all benefit from a healthy Salish Sea. 

Following along on my Blog Post in February, I'm continuing to create small works (10" x 10") that reflect my love of our islands and the oceans that surround us. I have begun small "Collectors Sales" that feature these works and I invite you to visit my sales page: 

https://www.susanpm.com/our-salish-sea-collectors-sale/

Sales have been very good but there are a few lovely pieces remaining!

At Grimmer Bay

Crossing Swanson Channel

North from Shingle Bay

Towards Navy Channel

New Work - The Magic of Blue

 Lately, I've been leaning towards more mixed media work, incorporating/combining both paper and fabric together and using mark making with collage for a series of work that focuses on the beauty of indigo. I have found an ink that is very close in hue to natural indigo and love using it with black and white mono printing as well as text.

I have built a webpage that is dedicated to small, new works for sale and I hope to rotate small collections through the page with a reasonable price point. This first exploration I am titling The Magic of Blue!

Enjoy these few and then have a look further here: https://www.susanpm.com/the-magic-of-blue-collectors-sale/

Ice Dyeing Revealed Update! New Content, New Colour, New Folds

 Over the years I've discovered that to make changes you can start from scratch or improve and update what you already have. In my online workshops I've done both...making new videos and updating what I already have. In my Ice Dyeing Workshop I started out by making a short instructional video, then I learned more about the techniques, folds and colour combinations and made another video. That was a few years ago and I've learned even more, so I've added two additional videos to my workshop and its better than ever! And it's better because I listened to the comments and suggestions from my students....

So.....whats different?

• one lesson entirely devoted to different fold designs and you know, its all about the folds! Well, its about the folds, the colours, the ice and much more!
• additional information about my set up and process - I now have an ice machine!
• how to ice dye clothing, yardage, vintage linens and table cloths...
• colour combinations that I use...
• an updated webpage for simple, easy access

In all, there's almost 2 1/2 hours of video in this workshop - totally devoted to helping you master the process! Here's some totally awesome new fabrics!

So, pretty awesome right? Well, there's more to tell you....if you've already taken my Ice Dyeing Revealed workshop - the new content is there in the webpage for you! Just log in and you'll see it.

If I've tempted you to take the workshop - you can buy it in my Etsy Shop here: 

Ice Dyeing Revealed

....but wait....there's more! I have yards and yards of new Ice Dyed fabrics in my Etsy Shop here:

Ice Dyed Fabrics

...still more! I am now ice dyeing 20" squares - perfect as little treats, small projects or ??? Plus there's free shipping in Canada! You can buy them here:

Ice Dyed Squares

Two Roads Diverged....

 My last blog post was about "call and response" ....mostly about seeing an opportunity for exploring further in an unexpected way....

I was painting some vintage fabric squares for a new piece I'm working on - the sky needs to have a very subtle, monochromatic with little contrast, so I was using a sponge roller with white paint.

For some reason I had black paper underneath and when I lifted the fabric square I was totally entranced with the remaining images on the paper.

Tons of texture and beautiful marks left behind...

I thought if I used the white paint on white paper and then added a wash of India ink when it was dry, that might prove interesting....not so much!

The painted squares are waiting patiently and drying, I'm excited to get sewing with these for a new Industrial Shoreline piece. 

In the meantime I started playing with the painted papers....first I trimmed the papers into 6" squares (thinking like a quilter)... and placed them on a white background separated by a narrow 'border"...

It's okay but not exciting....

So then I look closely at one square and found the texture so entrancing....

And then, along with some other painted papers I experimented with some collage...much better and perhaps worth pursuing... it's put into my sketchbook and I think I'll come back to it at some point!

In the meantime, I have a stack of painted fabrics to work with...

...and how is your art coming along?

My Call and Response....

 I was watching the interview on Fibre Arts Take Two with Dorothy Caldwell and Claire Benn,  look on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbSWEfUADOE&t=4015s

... and Claire mentioned her explorations being a "call and response" ... meaning that she will have an idea and respond to it with an exploration to see where it takes her. I think we do this as a "what if" ...

In the interview Dorothy had a grouping of tied pages that reminded me of small books and since I'm in the midst of teaching my Cloth to Codex Online Workshop which focuses on books and mark making I thought of tearing up a large sheet of marked paper into pages....

The paper started as an exercise in .... chasing shadows with India ink. It sat in my cupboard for a few months ....

then I marked the back of the paper ....

and tore it up into rectangles ... and then just laid out the pieces in a random order. First one side ...

and then the other side ....

and arranged them again....

I like how they looked in a stack ...

and took some of the photos into my iPad app and drew over top ...

and then took the photo away ...

....so that's it for now! What's next? Crop and edit? Multi-coloured strips? Not sure but this is my "call and response"

What is yours?

One Good Thing Leads to Another!

 Isn't it fascinating how one art piece or part of one can lead down an interesting path in an entirely different and unexpected direction?

I've been working on a series titled The Industrial Shoreline, depicting scenes where shipping and other commercial interests meet the waters of our coastlines where mammals and sealife exist. The challenges of our urban environment are crossed against the industry of international shipping and the very really possibility of catastrophic accidents against our environment....

Along the Fraser

One constant feature of my artwork has been using marked fabrics over laid with paint for the sky. Often I will ask others to use markers and black paint to add their unique marks on the surface and then tone down the contrast with my own marks, this makes for a unique and vibrant background for the rest of the surface.

I usually cut these pieces into squares and rectangles and then sew them together to create a collage with incredible depth and texture. While I was constructing one of the "skies" I noticed the interesting marks and contrast of the back and thought they resembled shoreline, water and sky in themselves. 

A couple months ago I had assembled enough that I could look at them and figured out how to paint some watercolour paper, mounted the small squares on the paper and added stitch to create small land and seascapes. These pieces were a perfect addition to the 10 x 10 Show at the Ptarmigan Arts Gallery at Hope Bay, on now until March 7th. Let me know if you are interested in purchasing any of them!

Now I will also check the back of my painted and marked fabrics!

Spring at Brooks Point

Morning at Hope Bay

Through the Fog

DayBreak

I love the stitching part, so here's a closeup!