Portrait Time

Getting ready to create some 30 second and one minute portrait drawings for a class I'm taking.  I spent the better part of today scanning in images of dead relatives, mostly because the images were in black and white, for this assignment.

In with the Old

French Silk Dyes on Haboti with Gutta Resist circa 1994/95

I made this piece in a fabric dyeing class back in the dark ages, Priscilla Sage was my instructor at the time and I was also taking a 2D Mixed Media course with Jan Friedman which landed myself and a dozen or so of my classmates in a local cemetery for some black and white photography inspiration.

So yes those are supposed to be tombstones I painted onto the fabric.  I never did anything with this piece but this weekend during the open studio one of my visitors proceeded to go through my fabric stash, yeah she and her friends REALLY did do that, and she pulled this beauty from the stash.  

Of course they all wanted to know why it was wadded up in an old suitcase with dozes of other pieces of silk fabric instead of perfectly folded and pressed into squares. It's very simple, silk is like your hair, so just lightly crumple it and drop it into the place you wish it to live, do not press perfect lines onto your silk unless you wish for them to be permanent.

I will spritz this piece of fabric with some room temp distilled water while it hangs, and the wrinkles and crinkles will gently disappear.  After that I think I will back this piece with some batting and a cotton backing and then add some stitching, or not.

Iowa - Inspiration at 55 mph!

Iowa - Inspiration at 55 mph!  Whenever I'm not driving I like to take advantage of the situation by snapping tons of photos, photos that are in motion.  Every once in awhile I make a squealing noise indicating I really want to stop and take more photos of whatever that has captured my attention at that moment, but by and large images taken at 55mph intrigue me!

Windmill

Inspiration

Spring is an excellent time for me to gain fresh inspirations. I've been spending more time in the woods, especially after rain showers, and photographing wet and semi-wet surfaces. The lighting is wonderful and the contrast excellent. I see things in this atmosphere that I'd otherwise miss on a bright clear day.