Searching

I engage fairly often in a bit of "navel gazing".  We're told that we are each our own worst critic, and I think this is true.  Over the past few weeks, I've been searching for inspiration.  I've cruised the internet, and spent a fair bit of time in my personal library, trying to find a sense of direction with my art.  While thinking about this,  my need to stitch has lead to five charity quilts, of which three are now finished and ready to go.  The other two just need some simple machine quilting, and binding.  But the time has come for action.  

The weather prediction was for a hot sunny day, so I was up early this morning and prepared to go to my garden and paint fabric.  I planned to use fabric paint, acrylic paint, and was ready to "just do it!" My mantra for this year.

It's been a couple of years, so I started out with an old familiar task-sun printing.  But then creativity took over.  I got out some hand-dyed fabric that hadn't quite made the grade.  ( Nothing has "made the grade" lately, but that's another story.)  

Just as I had started, having brought half my studio outside, the wind came up and dark, threatening clouds rolled in.  So much for weather predictions!  However, despite the wind, and loss of the sun, I carried on.  By the time I finished with fabric paint, more than 3 hours later, I had 10 pieces laid out on the grass to dry, although only 6 are shown in the picture.

This is a previously dyed piece, that I over-painted with the green, and then put the 5 lids on to sun print.  The rocks are to hold everything down in the wind.  After it was dry, the resulting circles were void of green, but there is still not enough value contrast to make them stand out as much as I had hoped.  I 'm thinking of some hand stitching around the edges of the circles.  This can best be described as cheating at  clamped Shibori, but since the original dyeing was Shibori based, I feel no guilt.

The next picture shows painting over a bas-relief sculpture.  This is something I've tried in the past, but with mixed results.  The key appears to be the depth of the bas-relief, and this plaster ceiling medallion appears to be just about perfect.  I found it at a yard sale yesterday for a dollar, and certainly plan to use it again.  I have a glimmering of an idea about doing some circular mandala pieces, and this might show up in one.

If you look in the upper left corner of the first photo, you can see a plain purple ( trust me, it's purple- not blue )piece with three white ceramic tiles on it for sun printing.  I had written it off as a total failure, until I removed the tiles and found this.  I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, but it's a "keeper".

The other pieces are still working their way through my brain, and I have a couple of ideas, but nothing firmed up yet.  But after almost three years of artistic block, I feel wonderful at finally having "something", and I can't wait to get down to it.  Those other two charity quilts may just have to wait.

I plan to link this with Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday, and The Needle and Thread Network.