Addicted to the studio

The last couple of weeks have been a frantic time of energy sapping events and commitments that exhausted me.  Finally, today I was able to gear down, and catch my breath.  I now have a period ahead of me of few commitments, and the potential for a great deal of studio time.  I've really missed it, and am looking forward to my "fix", just like an addict.  But first I had to deal with mess and routine studio chores.

When I got downstairs this is what I found.  First of all, ironing that really needs to be done, or I'll have no trousers to wear tomorrow.

Some second hand frames and  matting that I picked up in my travels today, and hope to use "some day".  We all know what that means. (Snort!)

Two half done projects that have been waiting far to long for a bit of attention.

A third project that I have tried to work on over the past two very busy weeks, and just isn't working out very well

And finally, a big pile of old, somewhat broken jewelry that we picked up in our travels yesterday. I don't have anything in mind for using it, but wanted to claim it anyway.  This was culled from a large shopping bag that was on it's way to a thrift shop.

Two hours work and it was sorted out into like objects, and later carefully sorted into various boxes in my bead cupboard. 

Tonight I just plan to "veg out", but tomorrow I can return to my alter-ego as a studio artist.  And loving it!!

Part of being an artist

Yesterday, I attended a workshop that was directed toward a professional artist who expected that applying for grants would be part of their life as an artist.  There was a representative from the Manitoba Art Council, one of the primary sources of artists' grants locally.  Then we spent time with a nationally recognized artist who has also practiced in academia.  She took us through discussion and exercises on how one writes a grant proposal.

This has lead me to spent a great deal of time since in sorting out in my own mind whether grants will play any part in my artistic practice.  The answer is definitely "no" in terms of my own practice, but maybe "yes", relative to the special interest groups I belong to, and strongly support, although any such grant proposals would be directed to other funding bodies.  So, probably time well spent.

But the secondary benefit I see is in the writing necessary to support my own involvement in exhibitions, such as a professional c.v., as well as things like artist's statements for specific pieces, and the more general artist's statement one needs in describing their body of work- so so called "elevator piece".  This term describing  how you would explain what you do to someone you meet in an elevator-the 30 second "this is who I am and what I do" piece.

This is the same person who will be leading a critique session that I will be taking part in on Tuesday.  In the past I have found the few such sessions I've attended very stimulating, informative and thought provoking.  That sounds trite, but it's true.  Now  I have something to look forward to, but at the same time, not much time to make sure my artist's statement hits all the marks in terms of the information I received.

Well, that didn't work!

Had a great time playing with the INKtense, but when push came to shove, the images I was wanting on my dyed fabric, just didn't work out.  Instead, I went with adding them using FMQ'g.  Finally finished that today, but since there is really no value difference, and you have to rely on the loft created by the quilting to see anything, a picture at this point might be useless.  I'll add one anyway.  I hope you're able to see that this quilted background is composed of several triple spirals, surrounded by a a combination of pebbles and matchstick quilting.

The actual finished image will be one of the Circle of Life, appliqued over a thread painting of the Tree of Life.  But I'm having second and even third thoughts about the colours to use. The circle in black would be very, very dominant, and I don't want that.  Rather I think I might use a dark grey ( would have to dye that), or maybe a dark green.  Now, with a dark green I would need to decide whether it would be a blue green or a bright Spring green.  A further thought is giving consideration to loosely appliqueing leaves all over the circle.  Since, at this point, I plan to do the tree in dark browns, I have to decide if that should influence my decision.  Oh My!  What a lot of deciding to do.  IN the end, I need to get the tree appliqued on before the circle, so maybe I should do that, and then "audition" various colours for the circle itself.  Makes sense to me.

However, the tree will be FMQ'd on water soluble stabilizer.  This would have to be done in a hoop, and is not something I've ever done before. Heard about it but never done it.  More procrastination, when my brain is saying "just do it already!"

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

Trying a new technique

Recently, I watched a couple of videos on Design Matters TV, on the use of Inktense Blocks.  I've become quite intrigued with this.  Actually I've owned a box of Inktense pencils for some time, used them a bit, and almost forgot about them, but their use appears to be somewhat different than the blocks.  So the blocks have been at the back of my mind, but purchase put off by what I knew was a high price.  On a pension, this is always a consideration.

But, yesterday, knowing there was a sale on at the art supply store across town, we headed there. I had prepared myself for a price-y purchase, and was very selective in my choices.  I looked around, a bit, and found some Lumiere Fabric paint that was on sale and picked up three bottles of that, as well.  The check out was very very slow.  She had to find a code number on each of my paint sticks--pressed into the block and very hard to find and read.  Then she had to match that to numbers in her computer.  While this was going on, I asked her if, by chance, the Inktense blocks were on sale, and was surprised that they were 40% off.  In fact, everything in the store was on sale!  So off I went to see if I could find a sketch book with light weight pages to use for rubbings.  Alas no, all of the books there were too good  a quality.  lol

The bonus with these blocks and pencils is that, once water has been added and the piece dried, the colour is fixed, quite unlike any other watercolour product.  This means that they can be worked over, without any fear of losing the colour, or of compromising the work, overall. They also work well on textiles.  The deal maker for me.

The plan is to familiarize myself  with using the Inktense blocks, and then, maybe, use them in my current piece.  I have LWI dyed a piece of fabric with a very high thread count, for the background,  I would very much like to use the Inktense in marking symbols on this background.  Then I plan to FMQ the background, incorporating those symbols, using silk thread, so as to to keep the value range on the background very low.  Spent some time with my thread color charts of Superior Kimono Silk trying to find the right colour thread so that I  could order it.  Found what I wanted and then found it in my stash of Kimono silk, in the right colour.  Wow!  Had no idea that I had bought it, many months ago.  Must really like that colour.

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A challenging class

Yesterday was a teaching day.  I taught a basic "How to Build a Stitch "Bible".  I had never taught it before, and was concerned that there was so little actual "meat" in terms of content.  The morning was spent preparing the fabric base for the stitching.  I had carefully planned out the preparation in about 8 step by step instructions, but had made an un-suspected error in the supply list.  I use a lot of fusible web, and can't really afford the very good stuff, Misty Fuse, in the amounts I use.  So I will buy an entire bolt of something like Trans-Web, or WonderUnder.  I'm now on my 5th bolt.  It's been awhile since I bought any, and yesterday I found out that both now are sold without transfer paper attached.  All of my instructions require the benefits of transfer paper.  But we struggled through, and were actually ready to stitch sooner than I had expected.  Then my role was just one of being available for questions.  Since my first answer, intentionally, was "What does your manual say?", I shouldn't have had that much too do, but I was kept busy.  There were questions, and one lady appeared to be having a major disagreement with her machine, that took awhile to sort out.  Another had only been quilting for two years and had never used a machine previous to that, but she had an excellent manual, and a willingness to use it..

The gratification came whenever a student would say "I never knew my machine would do that!!"  This happened many times, and proved that the workshop was a valid one. The class started calling this an "eureka" moment. I also surprised myself at how  well I was able to troubleshoot the various machines. When the time came,I didn't have any qualms about accepting the cheque when it was offered.

I have a couple of picture of the students hard at work.  It was difficult to get a picture when the room didn't look like this, as everybody quickly learned to work from their manual.

something a little different.

For the past couple of years, I've participated in a home based craft sale, in December.  There are three of us who form the core of the sale, but the others have come and gone.  Not necessarily because of anything to do with the sale, but things like illness and moving out of the area have contributed.  This year we are taking a slightly different approach.  We are meeting once a month for an afternoon, and working on our craft.  We are using the meeting room of a local restaurant, and have invited anyone in the area to join us, via Facebook.  If nothing else, we hope that we'll all have enough made to justify having the sale, and will have organized a means of promoting it.

This week, I'm laid low by back problems, but have almost finished two, of what I hope will become many, tree ornaments suitable as sale items.  They will just need a hanging cord, and I plan to add suitable artificial leaves or flowers inside.  They are made from scraps of Duipionni silk, machine quilted with metallic thread, and hand beaded.

Live and learn. A cautionary tale.

While I spend most of my time with my fibre art, there are times I just want to veg out and do something easy.  I've been making donation quilts, but thought I would make something for myself.  I could work on something with a bit of a challenge, but but not too mentally challenging.  I found  picture on the internet that appeared to be for a traditional scrappy quilt, that I could work on bit by bit over as many months or years as it took.  It was sold on Amazon and described as being in book, but with a pretty hefty price.  With tax and shipping it was $63CDN.  It arrived yesterday in a huge envelope and I was excited.  What I got was not a book but rather a 20 page 6" by 9" pamphlet. It could have been mailed in a standard 9" by 12" envelope. It did contain a quilt pattern, and a coloured picture of the finished quilt, so that was as advertised. But the only colour was on the paper cover of the thing. This was in no way a "book".

I guess, I got basically what I had ordered, but I still feel very taken advantage of.