Friday Morning

Is Spring here yet? First I awoke to the darn woodpecker that insists on drilling a hole somewhere on the front of the house, so I knocked on the window and scared him off for the time being...Downstairs to make some coffee and I looked out the window and saw a really fat cardinal sitting in one tree and in another was a really fat robin. Eventhough they were fat, it looked like they were shivering and giving me that look that says, "Is it Spring yet? I'm cold and if you have some food, that works for me." So, I took a hunk of bread and broke it up for the birdies in hopes it would tide them over. I think the woodpecker was either still on the front of the house or pecking on the neighbor's house, so hopefully I won't reinforce him in sticking around. Now I'm out in the studio to look at some of the fabrics I dyed and painted last night.
Here are a few:

The purple is dyed with Jacquard's Procion Dyes and the other is a start with Liquitex Acrylic Inks. My plan is to over dye this piece with a different color.

This is Jacquard's Lumiere and Neopaque Colors

I could paint with this stuff all day!

Well, I'm really excited because Zach is coming home this weekend. Yeh! I miss that boy. Haven't seen him since Christmas. We've all just been working too hard. So, we are looking forward to having some fun.

Until later...Keep creating!

Happy Saturday!

Whew! What a great day.

I started out by dyeing some fabric, and working in the studio on some more little bags! Here are a couple of shots:

These are all hand painted.

These are made with some new fabrics my sister gave me, some batiks and other assorted treasures!

Then I FINALLY started on my M4-T Challenge (Twenty Two Tantalizing Treasures)! This is the 2010 Carolina Mixed Media Art Guild Challenge. Of course I put this off since January 14th, when registration opened. I have been procrastinating and waiting for that wonderful moment when a brilliant idea would pop into my head...well, that's why I am just now beginning! I did have a moment in the middle of the night when I wasn't sleeping well. I actually remembered all the details until morning and grabbed my sketchbook to record everything. Yes! So happy to finally have an idea and then even happier to have had the entire day to create! I would love to post the progress thus far, but we are sworn to secrecy until the opening of the show. Mark your calendars now and please check out the results of this extremely talented and wonderful group of gals! The opening is Friday, March 26th from 5pm-9pm at Artist Alley in Downtown Southern Pines. Owner, Jeanne Skipper is once again hosting us and the show will be up until April 23rd! It's 8pm and I have seriously been in the studio ALL DAY! Guess I'd better go make a salad or something for dinner...

My Latest Obsession!

I was going to call it an addiction, but I didn't want anyone to get the wrong impression of me. We'll call this an obsession! Okay, so fabric...it's oh so similar to working with paper, and if you know me, you know I am already obsessed with paper. Well, fabric is just another dimension! It really takes the same supplies to embellish both substrates and I also like mixing the two together...Here is a sample of that:

I did a demo at the store on Sunday and it was so much fun! Thank you to all those that came out to join in the fun! The photo I took didn't turn out so well, so I'll just post this other one that I took of one of the fabrics I painted:

Then, once I cleaned up and finished my day at work, Joe and I headed home and the Super Bowl was about to begin. The only problem was that I got myself all excited about creating, that I didn't really want to watch football. I sat for a little bit and just couldn't do it, so I put dinner in the oven and headed out to the studio to create some more... I did the set ups on several pieces of fabric. I am currently using a glue resist, then painting over top with Liquitex acrylic inks, Matisse acrylics and Jacquard Lumiere paints. The problem is, you have to wait until the glue dries to paint. So, I glued on about 10 pieces of fabric and went back to catch the second half of the Superbowl, which I hear was the best part anyway.

When I woke up this morning, I made my coffee and headed back out to the studio to paint before work...here's what I have so far:

I'm rather excited about these! I still have to wash out the glue, then figure out where to take these next. It's all just too much fun! Wish I had more time to spend out there...