Autumn is Finally Here!

I love Autumn, I truly do. The lack of humidity, the cool crisp air, fresh apples, and pumpkins everywhere, and most importantly my allergies are starting to calm down.

The part I love the most,  however, is the colors of the leaves. Reds, golds, oranges, and brilliant yellows, and everywhere!

So it's no surprise that I created art cloth show casing these colors in my Colors of the Earth and Pretty Pigments online classes.

If you'd like to capture the beauty of nature's natural palette using natural earth pigments then join me in my newest class Colors of the Earth.  Class starts on October 17th!

Color Inspiration Fall 2015

My neighbors maple tree is a brilliant orange color this year, last year it was a brilliant red.

Totally Tomato

Color inspiration from my garden.

Love the distinct color bands.

Yes, joy really can be found from something as simple as a tri-colored tomato from my own garden.

Yesterday's Find

Orange glass beads, in necklace form, found this at JB Knacker in Gilbert, Iowa.

I plan to take the necklace apart and use the beads in a project, I'm not sure who would wear this necklace anyway as the beads are incredibly rough and scratchy.

Academy Membership Special Pricing Ends Soon!!!

The Natural Surface Academy

Membership Special

 

Natural dye painted cotton fabric. 

Cochineal, osage orange, and charcoal.

 

Offer Ends January 1st, 2014!!!

Learn more here

 

Madder root, cochineal, and logwood

on silk charmuse and silk crepe de chine fabrics.

 

Deconstructed screen printing with newsprint and ink on cotton.

 

 

Inspiration

Inspiration for a future stitched piece!

Just because...

Thomas asleep on my office chair.

Pepper asleep on a quilt I started back in the 80's and have yet to finish but use anyway, in my office.  Neither cats like it when we start cleaning rearranging rooms in the house so they go hide in my office.

Oliver in My Office Chair

Oliver sitting in my office chair, am wondering if Pepper will actually defend his spot from the dog?

You Can't See Me!

Thomas nesting atop John's Carhart jacket, somehow he thinks because he's three feet from the ceiling we can't see him.

Thomas Again

Barely a year old.

Thomas

Summer coat, no bib, no mane and no ear tufts, almost a medium haired cat at this point. August of 2010

Winter coat, mane and bib and all fluffed out.  February of 2011.  He did grow his ear tufts back in and longer, much longer ear hairs, but alas the little bugger won't sit still for photos.

 

These are his feet in August, they are way hairier in the winter!

Thomas

What do you mean you can see me??? 

Pepper

Pepper being himself~!

Kneading Fabric!

 

Ok I couldn't resist!

 

Pepper going to town kneading a pile of a fabric!

 

Quit watching me!

 

 

Leave me alone!

 

 

Back to kneading the pile of fabric he's claimed as his own.



Pepper

Pepper and his chair! Right now I've parked my bookwork in the chair, on which he's decided to sleep.

My Office Assistant

Thomas in his summer coat, can't wait for winter to come so that he will be all fuzzy and adorable again.

Indigo and Rust

My Creative Process Part 3 of 4

The more I think about my creative process, the more I don't want to think about the it!  While I'm a process oriented artist, I'd rather be "doing" the process than simply writing about it.  So today, in pictures, this part of the process of writing about my creative process is all about auditioning a piece in progress.  And I'll probably post more photos in the next day or so as I work towards completing this piece.

Digital printed cotton fabric, printed from one of my photo collages, layered atop a piece of painted timtex.

I've been having a very hard time bringing myself to cut up, stitch, or otherwise use this piece of fabric.  And that is odd.  Odd in that I could easily print a hundred more of this collage onto fabric, paper, or whatever, so why not???

A digital piece of fabric that I printed from one of my photo collages, layered atop a piece of painted timtex.

And now with a digtially printed sheer silk organza fabric layed atop the other two layers.

And now with a layer of osage orange dyed silk organza layerd atop the previous two layers.

This piece will go through many auditions, layers, etc. before the first stitches take place, and once I start stitching I will then start auditioning more layers once again.

WIP - Big Blue Stem

Here it is hanging vertically, I started this piece many moons ago, as in like sometime around 1999 many moons ago! 

This piece has always bothered me, there's a thread over on the Quilt Art list about cutting up a piece.  Well I've been tempted to cut the dark side of this quilt off for some 12 years now!  Now that I have Adobe CS 6 I've started experimenting with this piece

Here it is without the marks, I'm thinking some additional stitching and or embellishment is needed to make this piece really sing.

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm

When I woke him up and asked him if he wanted me to move Pepper so he could go to bed, all I got was "ummm". Needless to say they are still sitting in the chair, both sound asleep.