Join Me for 60 Days of Birds Starting May 30th!

60 Days of Birds Mixed Media Challenge

Begins in 5 Days!!!

Learn more here!

It's Back, The 60 Day Bird Challenge!

The 60 Days of Birds Mixed Media Challenge is BACK!!!

I’m excited to offer this new option for 2017!

I’ve had requests for an in-depth version of the challenge for those who want to push their mixed media skills further! I will be sending daily email lessons for the duration of the challenge, you’ll also receive an invite to an exclusive version of our popular Facebook group, The 60 Day Bird Journal Challenge. Get more details and sign up here.

Registration NOW OPEN for Earth and Sky From Sketch to Stitch

Earth and Sky: From Sketch to Stitch 

A Mini Master Class

Earth and Sky is an Eight Week Mini Master Class divided into 2 Four Week modules with a One Week break in between the two modules.

Module 1: Sketch, Draw, Paint, Surface Design

Break Week

Module 2: Sketch, Surface Design, Stitch, Embellish

Class begins April 15th! 
Lifetime Access to the Class

NOTE: Because of the intensity of this class I am limiting the number of spaces available to 20!!!

From Sketch to Stitch

My Aurifil thread color palette for my latest series "Field Notes"

Field Notes was born out of several loves, passions of mine:

The love of the prairie.
The love of crops as they rise out of the ground each year.
The love of the symmetry and simplicity of how the fields themselves are arranged in the countryside.

Field Notes in progress on my table.

Some color studies.

Watercolor crayons, water soluble oil pastels, and water soluble graphite on sketchbook paper.

It's Been Awhile

So begins a new series I've titled "Fields". So far the goal is 18 large pieces and 12 small pieces. I'm using earth pigments, charcoal, conte, and mixed media pm cotton and silk fabrics this time around with machine stitching as the finishing touch.

I've been dragging my feet to start on this series, as it is the first series where I won't be using natural dyes. Fabric painting begins tonight. Photos coming soon.

Just 10 Days!!!

Join me as we explore the Earth's natural beauty in Pretty Pigments!!!!  

Class begins September 6th!

 Register Today to receive the Getting Started Bonus Content!

Rust and Clay Dyeing eBook Give Away!!!

FREE Rust and Clay Dyeing eBook Give Away

Now through Tuesday the 16th!!!

Click HERE for details!

Corn 2016

Corn No. 49 from 2012

Just when I thought I didn't have anything more to say about Corn, I was asked to participate in a three woman show come January 2017.  I was asked if I would be interested in creating some new Corn pieces for the show.

I said yes, all the while thinking I'm done with Corn, why am I saying yes?

Well it turns out I'm not done with Corn. The subconscious wants what it wants, and it was clearly wanting Corn.

Yesterday I managed to purchase the stretched canvas upon which my new pieces shall be mounted, and for a really good price.

Upon that purchase all sorts of imagery of finished pieces popped into my head. This time I'm going for a more earthy approach, using actual soil, clays, ochers, and earth pigments in combination with indigo, rust, and natural dyes (yes I'll be dyeing with corn husks, leaves, cobs, etc, with just a touch of digitally printed fabrics that lends to the modern digital tech age today's farms are becoming!

Stay tuned!!!

Color Studies

Color studies for a tomato.

Creating color studies has been long, boring, and tedious... then again mixing paint can be exciting.

It can also be terrifying when you realized you just wasted a large amount of expensive watercolor paint to end up with a color you don't want.  So make sure to put a swatch in your color studies swatch book, and note which colors, proportions, brands, etc.,

I remembered that I had fresh on the vine tomatoes in my kitchen...

In the end color mixing and creating all of those swatches has become well worth the effort.  The last time I did any serious color studies, that involved mixing my own paints, etc., was a good twenty plus years ago.

If you've never mixed colors before I highly recommend doing so, there are plenty of color mixing books available in the art book market to help get you started.

Color

I've finally hit that point, the one where I can no longer remember which colors are in my watercolor palettes so tonight I made a color map in a notebook for future reference.

I made maps for the first three palettes tonight, and as I was doing so I started wishing I had one of those huge palettes, the kind that holds 36+ pans. I have gobs of tubes of paint that are never used because there's no room in my current palettes for them to live.

My latest acquisition, a Pima watercolor palette.  The colors are numbered so it's hard telling what the actual colors are, am hoping I will find out someday what they are, I like them they're bright clear colors.

On My Table

Sulfur shelf fungus harvested some fifteen years ago now, displayed on a very old silver plate platter which serves to catch any bit of detritus that seems to fall continuously from the fungus.

Otherwise known as Chicken of the Woods (Laetiporus sp.)

Run, don't walk, to buy this book it's beyond delicious!!!

Back in Decemember I decided that 2016 would be about focusing on studio practices, improving rusty skills, and in general creating more artwork.

Which lead to the purchase of several online classes, books, art supplies and more.  Now if I could only remember what I learned from my Illustrator and Photoshop classes, sigh.  Sometimes I swear my brain is a sieve. 

I ""highly"" recommend these four books, and two more books that will be arriving this week!

Watercolors

I shall be dragging out my tubes of watercolors today...

because while I seem to own ever single commercially produced watercolor crayon...

palette...

or pencil...

I even have metallics and iridescent watercolors... and yet I don't have the color I need which is a true beige i.e. bird egg colors.

Failure to Post

That's exactly what I'm suffering from a failure to post and regularly.  I just noticed it's been awhile since I've updated.

I've been busy writing content for the 60 Day Bird Journal Challenge, and for Almost Stitched newsletter series (24 newsletters plus 6 bonus surprises) that I forget that others cannot read my mind.

So here's a photo of Pepper, our oldest cat, sporting some attitude while sitting atop a stitched story I wrote up yesterday with my sewing machine.  In between bouts of stitching and writing I've been dodging rain storms trying to get the raised beds planted.

Right now I'm at 50% or so completion and I have to say it's looking good.  John brought one of the porch chairs out to the garden area so that I can sit and watch the birds, butterflies, bees, and paint, sketch, and write unto my hearts content.

New Paints

Some new paints, I'm in love with Pam Carriker's new fluid matte paints and plan to purchase more colors!

As you can see here there's a considerable difference in the amount of paint and for the same price point!

My new half pan watercolor palette.

And here it is filled with watercolor paint!

Mark Making with Nature eBook Set MEGA SALE!!!

Black Friday thru Cyber Monday MEGA Sale

Mark Making with Nature  

Titles Include:

• Mark Making with Nature
• Rust and Clay Dyeing
• Compost Dyeing and Other Fermentation Dyeing Techniques
• Getting Started with Natural Dyeing 

That 's 172 pages of how-to dye, paint, and print with natural dyes for $3.95!  Own them today!

WIP Crows Follies

Crows Follies No's. 1 thru 14

There is nothing like seeing them laid out like this to make one realize what needs to be done, fixed, changed, etc.!  I'll have to have John make two new raised panel frames for me to replace No's 11 and 12 as these two do NOT go with this particular series color wise.  The good news is is I'll have him make more than two new frames for a new series in the blue tones.

Off to add more paint and ink to these panels.

Queens Crows

I'm spending some time updating my website this week, creating new pages, adding back in some collections so on and so forth.  Now that I've had some time away from this particular body of work Queens Crows, I'm thinking of going back into it and pushing the panels to see what else I can gain from this series.

My stencil film finally arrived now I get to play with my Silhouette Cameo hopefully creating a new series of crow stencils for my Crows Follies series.

On My Desk

From this

To this.  All told there will be a minimum of 28 new pieces in my Crows Folly series.  These fourteen panels are 6x6x2 inches, with the remaining panels being 8x8x2 inches.  I have several large panels as well for this series, however they will take a bit more work to finish.

More Crow Panels in Progress

If I counted correctly there will be a total of 26 panels in this new series, and once these are done I'm off to rework some encaustic pieces from a few years ago to include my crows, Queen Anne's Lace, and the marks I've been putting in these pieces.

I wasn't sure how these pieces were going to come out, while they have similar colors they are not exactly the same... but where's the fun in everything being the same, right!

I've allowed the distractions of the past few weeks beat my confidence levels down, it doesn't help that I've had a nasty head cold, or that my dad has had ongoing health problems.

I did get to see my brother last Monday, the first time since my mom died in 2005, they visited for a whole hour and forty five minutes before they had to leave again. 

So tomorrow it's back to drawing and painting crows, ravens, and blackbirds and if they are horrible then they are horrible.

But, the secret to mastering anything is to keep at it until... until well you've mastered it!

With that said I've decided to seriously edit the information I've compiled for my Natural Dye App, and just create the app!  A simple app that is accurate and usable is much more enjoyable than one that doesn't exist!!!  Feet of clay, I think that's the name for this syndrome, the whole "what if they hate it???"

There will always be haters, and they are not my audience anyway... so onward I will push this week!