Autumn Fog

The fog rolled in this morning, and I thought it would be great to take a walk, shoot some atmospheric pictures, and enjoy autumn.

The leaves are changing, but it was surprising how many flowers were still in bloom in late October.

Halloween is right around the corner!

Mixed media canvas with artificial flowers

The other day I was cruising YouTube and saw this awesome video by Donna Downey using fake flowers and paint, etc. Here is the link to her You Tube video.

I thought this was a fun project and easily done in 10 minute sections of time over a few days, since there is drying time involved.

I am painting over this painting/collage on canvas, as I never liked it much. You can see I started putting some modeling paste for texture over it.

I cut four artificial flowers off their stems. Sometimes they fall apart into individual pieces/layers when I do this, so it's good to put a dab of glue between the layers to hold it together. It looks like Donna used flowers meant for scrapbooking so she didn't seem to have this issue. I used  Beacon's 3n1 glue to glue the flowers down. I added some texture paste, and let it dry.

 A day later, I covered it all with gesso.

And let it dry.

Donna smeared on acrylic paints at this stage, but I just sprayed mine with glimmer mist type sprays. And let it dry.

I came back in with some more gesso and a touch more spray. 

While the gesso was wet, I sprinkled some UTEE (clear embossing powder) over top, and heated it with a heat gun.

I thought this was awesome and easy!  I wish I got a bit more gunky and heavy with gels to add more texture and make the flowers look more artsy, and I may skip the last layer of gesso and embossing powder if I try this again.

Art Experiment: Felt dryer balls

Art Experiment is a a series of posts using supplies which I own but have rarely (or never) used. Failure or success is not important, it is trying something different and seeing what can come from it.  There are three goals: try something new, use something in my supply stash, and have fun/experiment in the studio.

 My aunt requested felt dryer balls for Christmas. A while ago (probably two years ago), I had bought an enormous bag of alpaca fiber. When I say enormous, I mean a giant garbage bag full of "seconds" (the second trimming, not as nice as the first cutting, but fine for felting). I washed all of it multiple times, but it still had tiny bits of grass and hay pieces embedded in it, so I didn't want to use it for a felt art piece. I thought this would be great project to use up some of this fiber.

I am not one to just provide boring ivory felt balls, they need to be colorful. So the first step was to dye some of the alpaca fiber.  My stash of Jacquard acid dyes was rather sad, just two yellows and a bright lime green.  Luckily, there is always KoolAid mix at the grocery store to offer me a larger color range. 

I used the acid dyes and some of the KoolAid by putting damp alpaca fibers in different ziplock sandwich bags, adding the dye (that I already mixed with water), and steaming it in a steamer on the stove for about an hour.

I also used some of the KoolAid (already mixed with water, at least two packages in a plastic party cup of water) and tried to make two-tone sections of fiber. This worked pretty well. I put damp alpaca fiber on cling wrap in the sink,  dipped one end of the fiber in one color and squeezed it a few times and took it out of the cup. Then I dipped the other end in a different color and squeezed as well.  This was super messy. I highly recommend wearing gloves or your hands will be dyed as well as the fibers.  After wrapping the bundle in the cling wrap, I put it in a microwavable container and microwaved it for two minutes. I would let it cool and if I thought there was still color that hadn't absorbed, I would microwave it again.  I think next time I would do this in a gallon ziplock bag instead of cling wrap, as the cling wrap did not really stay closed. I also dyed some solid colors in the microwave as well

Once the fibers had been dyed, I let them cool completely. After they were cool, I soaked and rinsed the fibers in room-temperature water.  I had forgotten to add vinegar to the acid dyes (vinegar is not needed for the KoolAid, it is already acidic) so I had to rinse those fibers quite a bit, as well as the red KoolAid dyed fibers (gloves recommended).  Once the water was clear, I squeezed as much water out as I could and laid them on a towel to dry.  There may still be a little dye in the fibers, so use a towel you don't like and put it on a protected surface or one that you can use a bleach cleaner on, in case the dye bleeds through.

Here are my fibers.

Close-up of the variegated fibers

I didn't dye all of my fiber stash, as I just plan to use the colored fibers to cover the exterior of the ball. I grabbed a hunk of the natural (ivory) fiber for the center of the ball and put it in a container of room temperature water. While it sat in there a few minutes, I pulled out the colored fibers I wanted to use on the exterior. I pulled and spread the fibers out, since they were kind of clumped from the dyeing process.  I squeezed out the excess water from the ivory fiber and shaped it into a ball, then laid the colored fibers over it - on all sides.  I then put it in hot soapy water while holding it in a ball shape, took it out and squeezed out the excess water, and then rubbed the ball onto some bubble wrap to start the felt process (for just a few minutes).

I put my ball in a pantyhose leg and secured it with a rubber band. I did this over and over until I had two pantyhose legs' full of these balls.  I had read on the internet that the balls work better for helping dry and de-wrinkle clothes if there were at least eight of them.  I have no idea if this is true are not, but making balls was fun for the first six or so, then I lost my initiative after that. So I pretty much quit rubbing the balls on the bubble wrap and just stuck them in the pantyhose after adding the colored fibers.  I do think the first ones felted quicker in the wash machine than the others, but not enough for me to think it would have been worth my time to hand-rub them. 

As you can see, I am not very good about making them a consistent size. You should see what happens when I make cookies, they are all different sizes too.
I then threw my pantyhose covered balls in the wash machine.  In our new house we have a fancy new wash machine. When I bought it, I saw this one had a Soak function so I figured I could still use it to felt.  I think they turned out well. I did run them through the washer and the dryer twice, hot water wash/hot dry. I will probably add them to my wash when I am doing a dark load a few times, just to make sure there isn't any residual dye before I give them to my aunt. I would hate for her clothes to have colored polka dots from the dryer balls!

Nebraska Junk Jaunt

This past weekend was the Nebraska Junk Jaunt, which is a loop on some scenic byways with lots of garage sales, antique shops, and community sales over a three day weekend.

I went to a couple towns on Saturday afternoon, and another on Sunday.

I love junk. I love refinishing/painting furniture. I love using rusty things, old toys, old tools, and vintage-y things in my art.  I often have a booth at a modernism show and I am always on the hunt for mid-century items. That said, I didn't find much of interest. I was looking for some small furniture pieces and didn't find any of what I was looking for (nightstands, and a small round breakfast table). I didn't even find much good small arty junk, although I do already own a lot of junk and passed on stuff I already had or have had.

I did buy some embroidered linens and doilies: (I love the bucking bronco)

Some old toys:

 A frame (which was free):

And also, a portable clothes rack to use at future weekend fairs I may do, for hanging my dyed T-shirts. (No picture, it's already stored in the garage, and it was only $5).

Then I bought this small box. I want to paint and collage on it, and use it to store art supplies I use often.  Sorry, the Michael Jackson stickers will have to go. The box is cardboard, so it's nice a light, which is nice. 

Life Drawing

I am taking an uninstructed life drawing class at the local museum on Saturdays. It's been a long while since I've done any figure drawing, probably five years.  I did have a class on figure drawing when I was in college, 20 plus years ago. Since then, I would sometimes go to a uninstructed class at the Art Students League in Denver. But again, it's been at least five years.  So I'm a little rusty. I was never super great at shading, so the first few weeks I am concentrating on proportion and getting the model's form correct.

Here is a piece from the first two weeks. I don't think it is half bad since it's been so long since I've done life drawing. I figure it will probably take the whole eight week session to feel like I'm getting comfortable again, and happy with my drawings. (This is the best one so far).

Painting Big

I signed up for an online workshop with Alisa Burke, "Larger than Life", about painting large.  It is not a live class, but includes a lot of videos. I found it interesting and motivating.  Some of it isn't really my style. She uses words and phrases in some of her layers, which is something I typically don't do (on purpose).

I did start two paintings this weekend. There is still a lot of painting and layers that needs to be done, but I thought it was a good start. I do have an idea for a different kind of painting. I will probably work on it, while I am adding more to these.

I do highly recommend Alisa's class. It has lots of info and videos, and it is good motivation to jump in and get painting. I felt like I definitely got my money's worth, and I can go back and review the lessons and watch the videos any time.

These are about 2 'x 3', which is big for me, but I want to go bigger. It only took me about an hour to do both of these.   I really should have ironed these before I painted them. One is canvas, the other is a somewhat heavy muslin, both had been washed because I was originally going to dye them, so they were somewhat wrinkly.

I hope to find time to work on these this week. Last week was a bit of a battle, my hours have been increased at work, and I had a cold, so I lost all motivation. But I'm raring to go this week!

Art Experiment: Dy-na-flow and Textile Color on silk

Art Experiment is a a series of posts using supplies which I own but have rarely (or never) used. Failure or success is not important, it is trying something different and seeing what can come from it.  There are three goals: try something new, use something in my supply stash, and have fun/experiment in the studio.

I have a trial size set of Dy-na-flow paints and Jacquard Textile Colors paints.  I have heard that Dy-na-flow works great on silk, so -darn- I had to buy some silk. I did not water down the Dy-na-flow, but did water down the textile colors by about 25%.

I put my paints in cups so I could use a brush to apply it to the fabric. I labeled the cups with the paint type and color name.

I decided to try some sun printing because I love it so much.

Here is my fabric (an opaque white silk with silk organza over the top). I wet the fabrics, and painted different colors on top, laid down the stencils (and pinned them so they would not blow away), and set it out in the sun.

This sun print came out beautifully. The colors are very bold, so I may water down the paints if I use them again in the future.

 Here you can see the sheer folded back on the right, and the opaque fabric on the left.

I always love the print I get from this wood bead placemat.

Here is my layout using the Textile Color paints.

The sun print is very soft and not very detailed. This may be because I watered down these paints, or because it was late in the day and the sun wasn't very strong. My gut feeling is that regardless of these things, the Dy-na-flow is definitely the better paint than the Textile color for sun printing.

 Sheer folded back on the right, opaque fabric on the left.  The paint did not seep through to the lower layer as well as it did with the Dy-na-flow.

I also painted (both types of paint) onto silk dupioni and then sprinkled Jacquard Silk Salt on it. I thought the salt marks were too distinctive and the colors didn't blend much.

I had a bit of paint remaining, so I decided to do puddle painting. (I have a separate post on this using Setacolor paints).  This is roughly an 18" x 20" piece of cotton velvet.  I used the Dy-na-flow paints, and there was a lot of black left, which overpowered the other colors. I put down some stencils and plastic leaves for sun printing.

This turned out better than expected since it looked so black before sun printing!

For the Textile paints, I also did puddle painting as well, on silk dupioni.

Detail.

Overall, I thought the Dy-na-flow worked great and was very vibrant.  I definitely would consider using it again, especially on a silk project.  For the Textile Color, I would not use it to sun print, but it may be good for painting specific designs on fabric, or applying it through a stencil or with a stamp?

I do love my Setacolors, and I think the hand of the fabric is the same with Dy-na-flow or Setacolor. The Dy-na-flow colors seem more vibrant to me, but that may be because I was working on silk.  So I may need to try Setacolors on silk as well.  I do feel like the Dy-na-flow and Textile Color definitely need to be heat set.  The paints easily washed off my hands.  The Setacolor paints seem more permanent prior to heat setting.  When I used Setacolor Transparent paints on my foam backer board, it always dries and never transfers to my next project. With these other paints, I feel like I need to hose down my boards to prevent any leftover paint from re-activating the next time I use my boards.

I have had a lot of fun with my recent Art Experiments. My next project will have the salt patterned dupioni as a background layer.  I hope to complete it by next week!