Archive for the ‘batik’ Category

Cool week on the web…..

One of my favorite artists for the incredible batik work she does, Mary Edna Fraser. This is a look at a new installation in progress that she is working on.

Who knows when just one little act that we think nothing of will mean the world to someone else? From Letters of Note: With the hoopla starting for the summer Olympics, there’s this ad from Proctor and Gamble that made the rounds I think in 2010 (which seems like I saw it just yesterday). It’s worth a few minutes of your time. And also from The Best Article Every Day comes this little bonus pic:

Genius isn’t always noticeable, as this blog from The Creativity Post points out. Check out these famous “failures.”

Another interesting take on creativity: science and ballet, also from The Creativity Post.

From The Cartoon Brew comes a Stephen Colbert interview (parts 1 and 2) filmed in January with Maurice Sendak. Lovely! Sendak will be sorely missed.

Chocolate, chocolate – probably the most creative use I’ve seen in a while. I found this through Cool Hunting from The Dessert Girl blog, and it’s oh so clever an idea! A new take on the molten cake…..

From The Huff Post comes this amazing article on women in combat and their issues as veterans. There are some amazing ladies profiled, and it’s interesting to see how they have had to struggle to get the same medical benefits as their male counterparts…because technically they are not considered combat veterans.

I am reading Susan Cain’s book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking. It has very interesting applications for the classroom, since we are always encouraged to do group work and have everyone participate vocally in class…..something I always got dinged on in my evaluations. Basically I believe that not everyone has to be able to participate in a group…my own experience. This is a TED talk she gave that’s quite interesting.

And finally, Animals Talking All In Caps. Great animal pictures with really funny captions. Great way to start the day!

So what did you find this week on the web?

I’ve been sewing a LOT on the commission that needs to be done before I can move on to a couple of other projects. I am finding that setting specific number of times for sewing each day, as well as assigning specific times, is helping me make progress. Hopefully next Wednesday you’ll see the finished commission.

In other work, we’re experimenting with Margot Bianca, a batik artist we met at La Conner. Here’s her Etsy store. We traded a batik for a marbled fabric. Margot will batik on top of cotton that has already been marbled. We are going to marble on top of a piece that is already had wax. Here’s initial results. This first is the original batik and the marbled batik (we just did a small piece). I personally like the effect, and I think we could do some interesting combinations together.

Here’s a close-up of the piece after marbling.

And…since I haven’t been working on Photoshop lately, I just had to play around with a couple of filters – there are a lot of possibilities for art cards…..here’s an inversion.

Here’s a half-tone:

This one is poster edges.

And now for the emboss:

The other batik experiment is with a piece of linen that just has wax on it. I’m still working on ironing out all the wax……For this piece I think the marbling pattern needed to be more complex than just a basic stone, but again, I think there are possibilities.

Now waiting for batting and backing is the very beginning of my “depression” piece….which has a general idea, and it will speak to me as we go along.

This is an unpolished black satin.

Hopefully I will have a bunch o’ stuff next week!

Busy week! I’ve been dutifully getting a list made each day, and I am being pretty successful at accomplishing everything. The biggest news….I FINALLY have all the names entered to be able to start the newsletter. Next week it should arrive in your mailboxes….a mere 16 months after the last one. I’ma workin’ on it……

Here’s a couple of pictures of what’s been happening this week. We are waiting on about 10 years of pima cotton to get started on our next big order, as well as a large order of paints. Meantime, hubby is planning to marble some small test pieces for a couple of projects. First up, a piece of linen that has wax on it. We met a wonderful batik artist up at StashFest in La Conner, Margot Bianca. You can check her Etsy store here. We spent a lot of time talking, and we’re going to marble a piece of linen, and then Margot will dye it, and she is going to batik a piece of already-marbled cotton. Should be a lot of fun to experiment. We’ll show results as they happen.

The studio is ready for marbling. We can dry in the garage, but sometimes for pretreating, it’s just easier, especially if there are mostly small pieces, to set up the drying racks in the studio. We sure do know how to maximize space!

And we do recycle, as you can see from the OJ bottles – they are perfect for keeping carrageenan as the bubbles disappear and then get stored in the refrigerator. We always cover up the rugs, even though we are obsessively neat, because the one time we don’t, paint will spatter…..

I am currently finishing a piece for my yoga instructor, as we are bartering: art for yoga lessons. You may recognize the piece….this is the “remains” of my “Shallows” piece, and it is in the process of becoming a triptych. More on that as it gets finished, hopefully by next week.

Still lots of shading, binding, lots of beads so that we have a small stream running through the three pieces. And of course, my lichen……

I’m also trying to start the pattern for the seasons wall hangings. I’ve got the ideas, and potentially the right fabric. Here’s spring….

…and here’s summer…..

I may actually combine the two…it will depend on how it works out.

There’s lots more on the list, including a new book I am starting on tutoring. I need to schedule significant writing time, along with all the sewing. So far, so productive!