More food dying

Here are the results of my onion skin fabric dying. The yellow onions produced a beautiful buttery yellow dye.

Here's more rust dyed fabric, which I LOVE. Even Max said, "Mom, you should do a shirt. It would look really good on you!" Yep, I need a white t-shirt to rust.

Then there is this gorgeous pink fabric. I love how the pattern is forming.
And the blending of the two.

This top piece is recycled raw silk. First, dyed with onion skins, then redyed.

I tried to create a pattern with the over-dying in the piece above.

And then there is some pieces in process. I'll unwind them tomorrow and see what happened with all my little kitchen ingredients! :)

Right now, I have a shirt "brewing"... I stamped on it with cut broccoli dipped in Soft Scrub with bleach. Anxious to see how it turns out! It's fun playing with all this stuff and experimenting!

Quitting for the day

Well, I'm tired and stopping for the day with all this clean out. Here's where I'm at this evening.
I've made pretty good progress today but still have a lot to do. It takes a lot of thinking trying to figure out the best "home"for various things. Then there's the deciding what to keep and what to get rid of. I have a ton of stuff to go through but, maybe tomorrow afternoon, I can at least get the table surfaces cleaned off. Then I'll have a place to sort items as I go through drawers. Once I am confident with where things are put, I will label all drawers and containers.

Now to go clean up the kitchen from my onion skin dying experiment! My boys were suppose to be brought home at 6 from the weekend with their dad. Still waiting... have no idea when they will actually show up. I miss them! Anxious to veg on the couch with them watching Gilligan!

Progress report

Well, it's almost 4 in the afternoon and I've been cleaning stuff out in the studio all day. I've stopped for a snack and thought I'd post a progress photo. In the back left, you see the big basket? That's stuff I'm not keeping. And in the chair just behind that are all empty plastic bins!!!!!! I still have a LONG way to go. I want to go through everything, reorganize, label, etc...Then I can maximize my creative time knowing what I have and where it is. And, going through stuff sparks new ideas!

Also, here is my first piece of rust fabric! In my cleaning out process, I found a bag of onion skins and decided to experiment with dying with those so I'll show results of that later. I need to collect some purple skins.

My boys have been with their dad all weekend and are due home at 6. I will be hanging out with them watching Gilligan's Island. We just got another disc in the mail from Netflix! We've also been watching Green Acres! Funny... when I watched it as a kid, I never questioned why Oliver insisted on wearing his attorney clothes to farm. Why didn't he get overalls?

heading in

Well, this is the state of my studio right now... and it's overflowing into my dining room, as you can see! Oh, and this doesn't count the pile in the back of my van that I haven't brought back into the house yet! EEK! I'm heading in to start the clean out and organizing process... if I disappear, someone come look for me.

And by the way, we are having AMAZING weather! It's about 68 degrees at 8:30 a.m. Unheard of in Phoenix at the end of May! It couldn't be more perfect!

Rusting

Yep, that's what I'm up to... rusting fabric. Isn't it gorgeous!?!?

Art Unraveled

"It's in the Bag" book inked

"It's in the bag" book left raw

Art Unraveled is coming up in just a few months! I can't believe it! I have to start hammering out proposals for 2012 this summer already! Holy Moly!

This year, at AU, I will be teaching my book binding classed called "It's in the Bag". The cover of the book is created with plastic grocery bags! It's a great recycling project and makes for a sturdy, very lightweight cover for a hand bound journal. The technique for creating the cover also opens up a lot of possibilities for other projects. My mind starts whirling with ideas when I am working on these books! The class does require a sewing machine but has a very small supply list. I was just offered the use of 5 sewing machines for this class for students traveling from out of state!!!!!! So, if you have considered the class but held back because of the issue of traveling with a sewing machine, now there are a handful available for use in class! Please contact me (princessburninghair (at) cox (dot) net) if you need a machine and have signed up for the class so I can reserve one for you.

Final trip post

In the garden... Karan and Pasqual (not sure if I spelled that right!) have a great little garden in their back yard. Here are a few of my favorite pictures. I LOVE the squash blossoms... would have liked to pick them and cook them up! :)





And wouldn't you know, Karan and I didn't get any pictures of the two of us until I was ready to leave... no make up, nothing! LOL! Oh well...

This trip was such a great experience. Not just the teaching, which was awesome, but getting to be with other like minded people... other artists. There just isn't anything better! Karan and I had never met until she picked me up from the airport but there was a common bond and friendship already. I met several new artists, some whose names were familiar and others, brand new. I have new friend's blogs in my google reader and new FB friends. I also got to finally meet another long time online friend, Kari McKnight Holbrook, who was also teaching at Create. Such a sweetheart!

Flowers

I took all of these photos in Karan's yard or from flowers running alongside her fence! However, the orchids are inside and are grown by her husband.

Day 2 at CREATE

Saturday, I taught "Torn and Stitched: A Composition of Bits and Pieces". I wrote this class 3 years ago and finally got to teach it! It was a good class. My students were eager to learn more about creating a balanced composition with bits and pieces of fabric. None of them had ever done a transparency transfer either so we had fun doing transfers first thing! They then chose their favorite to create their piece of artwork with. I had a couple of quick workers so they did two pieces. I also learned some things in this class myself that I will utilize should I ever get the opportunity to teach this class again. One of those things was taught by a student in her "problem solving" process! I love watching process... and Patricia talked hers out and it was an invigorating process to watch. And she has the most magnetic Australian accent! Here are some photos of that class: (don't know why most of this is underlined and don't know how to fix it! It is not a link!)

mother and daughter in class! :)

I love how each piece really reflects the creator of it. Surprising how each piece truly tells a story about the person who made it! So cool!

I'll do a separate post of photos I took outside at Karan's house before we headed to the airport.

I'm trying to catch up on things in my house, that have been let go. My studio is in great need of an overhaul but I had a lot of paperwork to do before my trip about some other things and I have to get filing under control and find the top of my desk! That will be my work for the morning.