the trouble in new techniques...

...is not getting carried away with the doing of the thing and not thinking about ways to integrate it into the real work of art, the intent and the design of a piece. There's some debate about whether this stuff is light fast enough to bother with, much less incorporate in any kind of art so I'm going to put some of these pieces out in the sun to bake with tape on them just to see what gets lost over a set period of time. Anyone recognize my failed batik attempt? The fade and glow reminds me a lot of the doodles I used to do in art school using Dr.Ph. Martins superdooper intense watercolor concentrates. The stuff cost like blood but I had a mess of them and used them too excess at every opportunity. Hey, it was the 60's!

doodling dots

Karma Approved Work. I know I missed doodle wednesday - I was waiting on 20 minutes to work with a new technique. The results make me think of encaustic - something that's always drawn my eye. Here we have encaustic in cloth. sort of. Actually, it's Sharpies treated with rubbing alcohol. ...a whole new alphabet of color and ways to fling it about.

dotz

Just waiting on the moon, I guess. Before the dotz these cloths were sad. Now they are humming with life. Stone Roses too.

hand dyes for sale

Many of the pieces I made this weekend were big enough for me to take a chunk for myself and put the rest up for sale here: I'll be posting more pieces as soon as I can. There's enough good stuff to share. If you are only interested in 1/2 of a piece we can work it out.

Summer Solstice Dye Fest & Father's Day Feast

I am in the home stretch of a two day dyeing extravaganza only slightly relieved by a short stint at the local ER. The last of almost about 40 individual pieces averaging 3/4 yards and up are rolling around in the dryer right now. The color mood was generally restrained - I think the age of the dye powder is beginning to show especially because I have not been able to keep them in a cool place. Things ranges from midnight moodiness to the sublime and quite a few ridiculous. All and all I'm quite satisfied. It really was too hot to be working midday on Saturday but I pressed on brain baked and a good portion of those pieces went back in the vats or under the Softscrub on Sunday. Oh yeah, Saturday evening I took my son Jake to the emergency room to have an abscessed insect bite on his forearm lanced before it got a moments worse. He'll be fine. There are at least a full dozen new Sugar Dyes in colorways ranging from emerald forest to desert sands. You can see the pattern woven into the damask in this picture. I was actually ironing this stuff in the heat. If I seem a little possessed it's because I will have very little time for this kind of fun in the future - my Beloved, father of my finest creations, my chef, my personal shopper and all the kitchen cleaning elves are leaving - Jim has been called back to his real job!! The boys came by today to spend some time with their Dad, eat some food and do some laundry. It was a wonderful day.