A new Season

We are entering a new season at our house. I lost my health benefits and some hours at work mid March so I am switching to part time hours. One of my at-home days will be dedicated to doing art and one day to grade for CCEF's distance education classes. Both I hope will bring in some money to make up for what I lost. I am looking forward to being home more since my husband works nights. I'll actually be around when he is awake - that can't be anything but good for the marriage.

Here are pics of Tim cutting down trees in our back yard.

He was up about 60-75 feet and called for me to come take pictures. I did so and then I yelled up, "Be Safe!" He yelled back down, "Did you say you loved me?" I said "Good translation."

He will be 58 at the end of April. He decided that the last tree (of four) he would have to hire out to be cut because it was hanging too much over the house and wires. He said he got his money's worth out of the tree climbing stuff he bought on craig's list.

Tim is building a workshop outback for himself. When that is done then my new studio will move into his old space Whoo Hoo! Of course this is going to take awhile since money is tight but it is amazing how much building supplies he is finding that folks are giving away or selling cheap. A little bit here and a little bit there adds up to a new workshop.

Day 13 continued

Ok, so to catch up with the work I have been puttering around on these past couple of days.
Remember I had two yards that were from break down screen printing...
I split those two yards each in half after the first batching was done.
One half of each piece I tray dyed and one half I printed on some more.
Here is the brown/yellow piece-














Here is the process for the piece on the left:
Step one: Break down screen printing then screen printing of the curvy lines.
Step two - tray dying
Here is the process for the piece on the right.
Step one is the same as for the one on the left.
Step two is additional screen printing with a spiral shape in three or four colors- plum, green, blue


Here is the blue/green piece














Here is the process for the piece on the left.
Step one: breakdown screen printing
Step two: tray dying
Here is the process for the piece on the right.
Step one same as above
Step two: I used two screens to print; one for the blue corn flowers and one for the curved lines. I used three different colors for the curved lines- plum/red, blue, and green. The larger green dots were from the breakdown printing.

The pieces I printed all over a second time still have a lot of white fabric left in them so rather than tray dye them I am going to continue printing and see what other colors I can add before I scrap the back of the whole piece with a contrasting color.

The piece I put glue dots all over and then screen printed dark green....well I tray dyed that a light green and here is a picture of the results. There is still some room in the fabric to add some more color. I am going to hang this up on my design wall and see what color I think I might want to add in. I might split it and do two different things with it too just to experiment.










Two things I have gotten from my husband of almost three years:
"It is just an experiment. Try and see what happens."
So liberating!
"Prepare for the worst and hope for the best."
I find myself using this statements all the time.

I don't make new year's resolutions I pray and ask God what character quality he wants me to focus on for the coming year. That is what I am doing today. What character quality would be a good one to meditate and pray about for this year? I have done thankfulness, love, & self control in past years----I am thinking peace- the peace that comes from God and surpasses our understanding. I have become aware of a lot of anxiety still lurking around in my this past semester.... I'll let you know.
I just found this blog from Christine Kane that encourages you to pick a word for the year. Same kind of idea.

Happy New Year!

Are you wondering where I have been the last couple of days?
Today is day 13 of my vacation and the last couple of days I have only puttered a little with art.
I did do a search on U Tube to see if there were any demos on layering in photo shop. I found some but not with the information I needed at the moment. I know they will help me in the future. That was disappointing i am just waiting for the library book to come. I may try and see if the B & N bookstore is open today. I am stuck on the building piece until I can figure this out.

I have read four novels though! I found some new Jesse Stone books by Robert Parker. Parker's writing style is cryptic, but he makes you think. I find this fascinating and from a counseling perspective he is mostly right-on about people's process only without God.

One thing that came out real well is the revival of the old piece.
I took off the borders and put color on them with green print paste. They turned out great. They match so much better to the over all piece now. Then I realized that what i think it needs is a small colored frame inside these green borders so the inside doesn't bleed off into the edges.
Here are three trials with fabric I made: yellow, red, and blue. Don't think I have hit upon it yet but I am close. This piece incidentally is called Montreat stream. My family used to camp for two weeks each summer right by this stream and I wanted to capture some of the essence of that time.

Monday - Day Ten

Rachel, Ruth, Tim and I went to the Chemical Heritage Museum in Olde City Philadelphia today and had a great time. We also explored the largest collection of Peale portraits in the world. It is overseen by the Parks Dept in the the Second Bank Building. We saw portraits of all the famous people in the history of the United States: Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Lewis and Clark and many others in government or society during the lifetime of Peale. Pretty cool. We ate lunch in a pub that had a ton of interesting books to look at then went to the used book store and then came home around 4 pm.

I did a little bit of work in the studio late in the day. Screen printing and tray dying the things I had soda soaked over night. I also rinsed out the stuff that batched overnight. Since I got such a late start I don't have any pictures cause stuff is still washing and I am going to bed.
Til tomorrow!

Day Nine- Sunday

I felt like I just wanted to sit someplace and do handwork all day. I am thinking I need to get a 1/2 quilted piece out and put it on the frame to just doodle on in the down times.

Anyway, after church and lunch,
I worked on my pictures for the inside of the building on the computer. I can't figure out how to use the layering on Photoshop Elements. BUM. I know I am only missing one small step but I don't know what that one small step is.

The library didn't have a book to help onsite. I had to inner library loan an item. So perhaps later in the week unless my daughter can help me figure it out I'll have some more detailed instructions. I should see if there is a u tube video....

Meanwhile, I worked on the building. I attached the three pieces of outside together and got the timtex to stick to the fabric. I am stuck until I can print the pictures using the photoshop elements program for the inside....

So I took the border off this piece and dyed it a more solid green. It is batching overnight.














I took these two pieces and split them in half - half I dyed (one green and one brown) and half I am preparing to print on again.
Tomorrow we are taking a day trip downtown. I am taking my camera!

Day Eight- Saturday

I spent the whole day working on "the building"
Here are the pics.
This is the fabric for the outside and the timtex painted.















I am adding gold for the places where the offices in the building still had their lights on and the dark blue is a reflection of a nearby building in the late afternoon sun.


Rachel, Tim and I then tried to get into Fonthill at 7pm for the candlelight tour, but it was all booked. We went for ice cream instead and came home for a early bedtime.

Day Seven

So it is the day after Christmas and I finally made it to the Gym today WOO HOO.
I also put all our Christmas money in the bank. Yippee!

I watched a video if my dad's recent retirement from the Quarryville Board. They said some really true and nice things about him. I know his service will be greatly missed, but he feels it is time for him to be serving other places now. I need to return this along with several books and a disc with all our Christmas pics to my parents next week.

So what art did I do today?
I finally got outside and ironed the fabrics I had put discharge chemicals on. They turned out ok. The second blue one could be clouds.














In this picture of the green fabric one side is showing on the bottom and the other side is at the top. You can't really see the pattern of the discharge chemicals from the picture and they didn't take off as much of the dark orange as I had hoped but the back is splendid and will make great spring leaves with dappled light on them.

one thing I did learn is that the discharge works better on lighter colored fabrics- or perhaps it would have preferred a warmer day to be ironed...?





The last thing I did was to work on the building for my city and guilds module. I painted one side of the timtex and it is drying. I got all the strips sewed that are going to be attached to the outside of the timtex. I still need to sew the pin tuck on them however- no wonder i postponed this project!. Next I need to figure out how to layer pictures in Photoship Elements so I can print fabric on the printer from pics off my computer for the inside of the building. I wanted a contrast inside to the cold harsh metal feeling of the outside so I need to combine or layer my tree pictures....

Tim got me a great book from the library on Japanese Maple Trees. There are some good pictures of leaves that I can photocopy and manipulate to create a template to send off for a new screen to be made. Very Thankful.

Here is the old quilt top that picked up to worked on last night. The first picture is of the whole thing. The next picture is an out of focus picture of some of the leaves and beading on the upper right- this was hours of work! The last picture is a reframing of the upper right by itself. I think this piece definitely needs a new border and the embroidery is hidden over most of the piece. So I am trying to figure out what my options are. Suggestions are welcome!