Productive Week

I must say the cold weather agrees with me. I have had a solid week of working both teaching and in the studio. Feels good. I finished some projects, some still have a bit more to go, another done except for steaming. All my rug hooking is steamed for finishing.

Self Portrait in progress

Bench cover

Hollyhock Rug Border left to do

Fish Mat needs steaming

Old Santa  also work in progress

That's it for now it may be warm enough to go for a walk with no trucks or hunters on the roads...

Another Day of Gelatine Prints

Determined to make a few decent prints I brought out the gelatine again. This time i had a bunch of stencils already cut to mix and add to. So not many words but here's the results.

This one on muslin

That's it I just want to add my friend Laura's blog for more prints to be seen  http://llmdunn.blogspot,com/
Check out her awesome prints

I will try to load the mixed media portrait that I have begun from the first of the week that refused to load. Here goes.

Time Passes, Surprises happen

Something happened in September which made me stop painitng, stop anything smacking of art. And then my friend Laura and I met , she showed me her monoprints printed on gelatin, right knox gelatine. Well I have to say after the second meeting and seeing as many more of her stunning prints I felt the twinges of getting my hands messy and digging out some acrylic paints, printer ink anything I could find. Now on the same day I met Laura in Portland I came home to a book from Amazon in the mailbox. One i did not even know had been  written. Man with Blue Scarf, On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucien Freud authored by Martin Gayford. He is the man with the blue scarf and what a read. I knew LF took a long while to paint portrats but this following along from August 04 to April 05 was extrodinary. And from that read and those prints I began a foray into the gelatine area.

The first ones were too messy to even take photos but the 3 heads I rather like. The 2nd one is what is called a ghost print after one print is already made there is still ink on the plate, enough to make a ghost print. Often they are delicate and have an evocative feeling that is wonderful.

The first night my dyslexic tendencies got square in my way and I had to email Laura to have her make me a map of sequences. For that first try after getting frustrated I ended up just drawing into the gelatine which are the above heads. Then back again for a next go.

 
Having tried with a small pan of gelatine I am now ready to make a larger cookie sheet to try this facinating process. This all wetted my juices that have been doing nothing in the paint realm for ages. So I got a piece of this super paper that Laura also got for me and put it on the wall and got the mirrow out and charcaol, pastels and began an exploratory mixed media drawing using myself loosley as model. Its a bit blurry as I had to move furniture to get to my drawing wall and then to take a pic was not easy. Ok Google is being uncooperative will load alter when it has calmed down. Seems to be happening a lot lately to a few bloggers...

Early This Morning

Out back of my house

Across the road all misty before the heavy rain

The pond that has been such an inspiration for many paintings

The littliest bundle from the last post when I also had trouble with photos

This is the wood's road where i gather a lot of windfalls for my eco dyeing

And this is the bread I bake now after many tries and several different pans, I think I have it now!!

The photos loaded ok this time but I can't get my words back to the top.This was early morning when I looked out to a misty landscape just had to grab the camers and take it for a walk. The rest of the day has been dark and rainy. I finished a hooked mat for my weaving bench. Was still a bit damp from being steamed so I will photo it tomorrow and then got all my new ecoprints ironed. Some leaf prints as well as flower and rose petals. I think my silk was too think so will be on the search for the thinner fabric . More pictures soon.

A Stunning Fall Day

This morning is bright, crisp and definitely fall. The cat decided not to go out the wind is brisk, the trees are blowing off their leaves at an alarming rate.

The wind is playing tag this morning as
one tree after another does the
flutter dance and then
is still.

                                        Wind dances across the water

This is my morning walk first by the pond and then next down a woods road to gather windfall

Down this road is where I gathered the leaves and other bits of lichen and fern for this tiny bundle.
Picture will come next time !


 Blogger is not allowing me to access the rest of my images.
I will close for now and try back later. The outside is calling me and so is the wrapping of the bottom of the house in plastic. This last nor'easter let me know just how much wind is coming through this old 1780 schoolhouse. Too much! Off to do chores and enjoy this glorious weather, we all know what's due soon. The white stuff and with the amount of acorns this year looks like it could be a very wintry year.

Summer Went by in A Blur

It' been a while since my last post and I can't tell you how that happens. The fogs of August were dense around the island and then or now its the end of September and Fall has been ushered in with changing colors, ideas, clothes and the house is being buttoned up for winter. This summer i had a great time dyeing with any and all plant material from the garden or walks along the woods road. I have collected acorns to use as mordants to help the cloth accept the dyes. I finally received my Eco Dyeing by India Flint . Actually it came  a day after I had emptied all my jars due to high wind warnings and I could envison them all crashing to the brick. Sooo  the next day I read that I could have saved all that dye bath and used it with another combination. Who knew. The same with pickle juice and that old batch of beet greens I never got to in the frige. All fuel for eco dyeing. It's quite a mind expander. I have a pile of dyed fabric that includes, avocado skins, hollyhock floweres with and without vinegar, marigolds, dyers cosmos, joe pye weed, crabapple mash after the jam was made same with elderberries. I am letting the Pileated woodpecker have the black chokecherries he gets so excited and jabbers non stop in the tree.

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This past Friday some friends and I went to Common Ground Fair in Unity. A long drive but was well worth it once we arrived and took the haywagon pulled by a tractor down to the Pine entrance to the fair. we headed for the food as breakfast seemed ages ago. Found the wood cooked pizza and ordered a pesto pizza which was very tasty, next stop the felting demo and then a walk through Folk Art tent 1 and 2. Saw  a rug hooker and a rug braider as well as a man using cattail to weave a rush seat. Since i have a seat that needs a new one I stopped to speak to him. It's too late this year but next year if I have not gotten the seat woven will cut cattail in july and august to dry and try my hand. Then we went to the fleece tent and spent a long while making up our minds which fleece a. we could afford and B. which would spin up beautifully and or overdye since we were looking at a silver gray/charcoal  fleece that had absolutely no vegetation in the whole bag of fleece. This was a fleece from the Millers of Rivercroft Farm in Starks. We pooled our funds to purchase this gorgeous fleece. I have already washed one pound to see how it would come out and its as beautiful as I thought it would be.

 Off to the tent with the Wednesday Spinners from down east. I saw a wonderful patterned hat with different colored traingles knit by Geri Valentine. Well I knew a Geri she was the first woman shearer I had even seen many mnay years ago and went to find her. As friendly as I had remembered and she said Donna Kausen is here too and off we went to see Donna. It was like old home week. I used to buy the wool  clip from Nash and Flat Island years ago and Donna and Brad would either drive to my house and unload 100's of pounds of wool or I'd meet them in a parking lot in Augusta. Those were the days in some ways, wonderful fleeces, all sold by the time i'd pick them up from the kausens, they were premium spinning fleece when not all farmers thought to raise spinning fleece. We were lucky spinners then. The prices were good and the wool clean as island fleece often is. I have been revisiting my fiber roots and liking what I see and especially the way of life that brings spinning, wool, mohair and other exotic fiber and people together.  The ability to share ideas, indigo seeds, how to's and friendship all seem to be a natural component in fiber people. Donna showed us how whe wove a liitle pouch on a cardboard loom. I had been experimenting with  tapestry on tiny cardboard looms and had enticed some of the students in rug hooking to try it to sample colors and ideas. And here was a different idea using that same old piece of cardboard. From there we went to the MOFGA store for Fran and Diane to purchase t shits and a sweatshirt. I sat on a bench and did some sketching. We also visited the exhibition hall to see the silk display, the worms were huge and doing a wand like dance. I could not figure out what they ate though. I did not see any leaves. They were in all stages of growth. Facinating. Then the different silks from cultivated or wild grown. Degummed and not, and finished products too was a good introduction to the whole sericulture of silk.

We saw a woman with shiny roving and had to ask where she purchased it. Found out it was Friends Folly Farm and they were near the animals. Again off on a search.

Here's Fran checking out fiber as we look for the roving

 Here is the color I chose Northern Lights and it is spinning up wonderfully!!

 more sights, a wagon ride

Stopping for the parade

and last stilts

Quite amazing!  

Now its time to gte back to spinning I have a lot of wool socks to knit.

What I have been working on lately

Well I finally finished this rug last week, got it bound and whipped the edge with yarn. The idea came from one of my paintings.

Penobscot Bay  this rug is long and narrow so not clear what happened to the photo

Now for some cloth work, I was feeling badly that I had not done much over the month the class ran and went through the piles of fabric to see what had been accomplished. I was pleasantly surprised that I began as many as I found. None finished but ideas are there and ready when time allows.

Blues

For this cloth I already know what comes next and will be a series of blues in old linens and some other cloth from the dye jars.

This one I call House/Home

Lightness

Boro

The Moon's Story which I continue to work on

This one is resting

This cloth honors my old friend Mr Blue

He was at the pond the other day and I was as close as I had ever been to him sketching and taking his photo

Not clear if this one is done, not quite I'm thinking but like the dark blue  is resting for a bit. Processing. Now I will try out some of the new lessons that just happened, words, split stitches and a thumb smash. Who can tell where the cloth will wander, I feel the ocean calling, maybe dense peasoup fogg. That images keeps asserting itself in my mind's eye. Til Then back to the rugs.