Still Life

An impromptu still life I set up this afternoon, in my wet studio.  I"m not used to painting flat other than fabric so I sat to paint the apple it worked out pretty well in the end, I'll finish the apple painting tomorrow.

Yesterday

Barley Tile No. 3

Barley Tile No. 3
1995
Hand Cast Paper, Pigments, Acrylic Paint

Thread Identification

Anyone know what brand of thread this is?  I bought it at Market in 2004 and have no idea who the manufacturer is aside from wanting more I need to price it out.  Light blue cones are polyester and the dark cone base is rayon. 

Prairie Bits and Pieces

Digitally printed fabric pins.

Digitally printed fabric, images are taken from my Prairie Potholes Harvest Quilts.

Embroidered compost dyed fabric pins in progress.

What I'm Up Tooooo

I'll post pictures tomorrow! Today is my birthday and I've been busy working in the studio and getting ready for this coming weekend. 

On Making a Profit

This is part of a comment I left over on Glennis Dolce's blog Shibori Girl

Interesting no one ever tells a resturaunt owner that it’s bad to make a profit, I only hear this kind of thing in the company of artists, artisans, and crafters, why???

Thermofax Woes

The light bulb burned out on my thermofax machine this afternoon, I've been doing some reading since then nad have discovered that my machine is 1. much older and 2. the light bulb for this machine is not that common!  If you have a thermofax machine you need to check the amps/volts before you purchase your bulb the bulb for the 12 amp 115 volt machine will NOT work in my machine!  Onward searching I go!

A few more brooches

Prairie bits and pieces

Been busy getting ready for this weekends show, this is just one of the brooches I've been making for this weekends show. Check out the Octagon Center for the Arts Fall Festival in Ames, IA this weekend!

Compost dyed cotton fabric
Machine stitched and embroidered
1.5 x 2.25 inches

Swine Flu Update

Well I'm recovering, finally, from the swine man swamp flu!  I still have a cough hanging on.  The canning came to a near screaching halt, John took 4 days off from work but the reality is 1. I'm more organized than he is, which isn't saying much btw, and 2. there was way more that needed canning than one person could do alone!  He did get a dozen or so pints of pear butter put up and a dozen or so quarts of tomatoes canned.  I'm feeling better but not by much, a simple drive across town  and back still wears me out and I need a nap just to recover from the experience.  To make matters worse I have a show coming up this weekend and I"m no where near being ready for the event.  More later from the kitchen!!!

Heron - WIP

I'm seriously considering ripping out the stitching on the red organza area! An idea that looked good in my head didn't work out the way I had hoped. It's rather lacking, the silk organza going wonky on the piece doesn't help matters any. 

IF I don't rip the stitching out and this is a very big IF, I may couch some yarn/fiber onto the piece in an assymetrical manner over the red stripe to correct the balance on the top right and lower left bottom. 

Prairie Potholes Harvest No. 23

I don't believe I've posted this one in the past, found it in a pile of work tonight while looking for a piece of indigo dyed rusted fabric, the fabric is still MIA.

Cochineal Cauldera

Bound resist on silk velvet, dyed with an exhausted osage orange bath and overdyed with cochineal.

Update

No pics tonight, note the time is 12:40am.  I'm in the throes of getting ready for a show next weekend and am still recovering from the swine flu, so something had to give and this time it's no pictures.

I will be vending with one of my best friends, Brenda, at the Octagon's Art Festival in Ames, IA next weekend. The name of our booth is Steampunk Prairie (she's Steampunk and I'm Prairie) so come on by to see what we've created!

Website update

I spent the better part of today updating my Art Website, it still needs loads more work, including links.
http://www.kbaxterpackwood.com/index.htm

Red Crow Embellishments

Embellishments from another piece I made in 1996, I scavanged them for this piece but won't attach them to the bottom until I'm done with the beading and stitching on the main piece.  I'm thinking of adding raw ocher to the piece tomorrow, specifically inside the crow woman section. 

Red Crow Kneeling WIP

I have some serious stitching to do now especially to the crow woman area on the quilt so that it remains the primary focale point of this piece.

Red Crow Kneeling - WIP

With a bit of embellishment.

Red Crow Kneeling WIP

Now with more stitching, on to the hand stitching and embellishing.

Red Crow Kneeling - WIP

Wonder Rust 1st layer of stitching detail.

Majorie

A picture of my mother in law taken back in 1936 somewhere in California.

Blogger

I still haven't figured out how to situate the pictures under the new blogger setup, hopefully I'll get this figured out and soon.

Encaustic Frames

Encaustic Panel

I'm serious when I say my work comes from a pet friendly home!  Baltic Birch plywood panel mounted to a 2.25 inch thick Baltic Birch Frame.  Angel tricolored sheltie.

Cochineal Vat

4 ounces of Cochineal was used to dye alum mordanted silk velvet, dupioni, and organa fabrics.

Encaustic

Oil paints that have been sitting for a day or two on paper towels.  I will use these in my encaustic panels with the beeswax and medium.  Setting the oil paint aside like this allows the paint to dry faster when it's combined with the beeswax.

Bean Field - Iowa

Blog Posts

I've been having some issues with posting for the past month. I just discovered an update, that I checked, and I'm hoping this will resolve the problem.

Cranberry Pear Sauce

Cranberry Pear Sauce.

Pears are a luxury for me as they are just priced out of my pay scale ;-) So when one of the neighbors said YES come on over and pick our trees... Cranberry Pear Sauce happens!

I typically make Cranberry Apple Sauce - known to us a saucey or sassy apples. The taste with pears is FAR superior to that of apples so if you have a glut of pears try this one side dish for a treat.

The sauce is still cooking down all told I'll have maybe 12 quarts when it's done cooking.

4 gallons cooking pears cored and stemmed (peel if that's what you like we leave the peels on for the fiber)

5 pounds frozen cranberries

5 cups sugar

1quart water

Put everything into your 5 gallon stainless steel OR enamel stock pot and cook down. NOTE we don't blend the sauce as we like it chunky OTHERWISE using your stick blender blend the sauce until it's smooth.

Process BWB quarts are 25 minutes pints 20 minutes for 1000 feet or less.