The Eyes Have It

I recently uncovered a bag of stuff I'd purchased from Dharma Trading last November to make holiday presents with (oops!), several blank scarves, toddler shirts, etc. And this stamping stuff too. Wasn't up to dyeing the wearable blanks, so I chose the stamping setup. I tried out a new stamping ink from Dr. Ph Martin and a different Speedball Speedy-Stamp carving block. I've never used the pink kind before, I found it to be nice and easy to carve (maybe too easy), and not crumbly like the white version.

Before I started any carving I first loaded up the dry stamp pads with the ink.

It takes a while for it to really soak in and get nice and juicy like a stamp pad should be.

I wasn't in a very good mood so I drew an angry face with a hat on the large piece, just with a pencil. Then carved it out with the Speedball Cutting Set using a fine tip and then larger tip, and an exacto blade for the biggest areas.

This is how the stamp looks after being inked up and printed. I think I might mount this to some wood because it is pretty large 3x5" and very flexible, I wouldn't want it to get flexed the wrong way and broken.

And here is how the first stamping went. The stamp pad was a little uneven at first, thus the blotches. I've learned the hard way that you always, always, always have to do a test stamp first if you're stamping on something critical and un-replaceable.

Then I felt like making a smaller stamp after that big one, so I took one of my leftover white pieces and carved these worried eyes. This is what happens when I make art while listening to NPR.

Worry Worry Worry! or Angry Angry Angry!

You can see how crumbly the white stuff is compared to the pink. Just like one of those old erasers. It is a lot firmer though, and very different to carve.

Here is how the orange ink printed up on the goldenrod fabric. Pretty nice and subtleThe last stamp of the day that I carved was a single eye. Not worried or angry just alert and intense.Here it is stamped out on part of an old sheet in the turquoise blue.
I like how the single stamp almost looks like a pair of eyes when stamped at the right distance apart. I think I'll be using this stamped fabric on the back of a shirt, so I can keep a good lookout when I'm out and about.

Fabrics Passing Through

I'm helping a friend sew up the perfect curtain for her bathroom, so she's been coming up with various fabrics to try out that will match her yellow and black counter tiles and the vintage artwork she wants to put up on the walls. Here is a vintage piece purchased on ebay, that wasn't quite the right color, so she gave it to me. I'm thinking it will make up into a good addition to my growing Atomic Pillowz collection.
And some freebie strips of fabric from the store to try out vs. the tile color. None of these really worked out either. We may be doing a black on white or white on black print, now the trick is to find just the right one. There are so many choices out there it is really hard to choose, very easy to get boggled, just for one example check out equilter's black/white category. Yikes, hard to narrow it down.

Finding just the ideal fabric is hard enough for using just a teeny bit in a quilt design somewhere, but in a curtain in your bathroom that you'll look at each and every day, a bit more important to get it just right.

Passion for Purple All Around

Hooray the rest of the Passion for Purple bullseye blocks arrived. Along with a cool tote bag, thanks Adrienne.
Wow there are really a lot of them!Here is the stack seen from the side. Lots of fun to play with.
Here's my first throw them up on the wall and see what sticks version. With this I'd have to make a couple more blocks to complete the quilt top. Stay tuned for more possibilities as I put this together.

Shades of Inspiration

Shades of Inspiration last week was black and white, so I took some pictures around the house, some of them turned out pretty well.

Cornucopia of Hotness

Hey, I had so much fun last month, that I'm Doing NaBloPoMo again for the month of August, this time around the theme is HOT. Hopefully that won't be a self-fulfilling weather prophecy, as I'm enjoying the mild summer temps lately. Luckily we don't need to stick to the theme to participate, just post every day. Which, I, ahem didn't do for the first three days of the month. Guesss I'll have to double up posts or something.

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Check out this: A giant reproduction of a Kandinsky painting.

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About a month ago I was lamenting having only one variety of daylily. I planted the daylilies that I ordered recently from Maryott's Garden. They look really healthy, and one of them has a flower stem already. I'll be surprised if they flower this year, but if they do I'll share a photo. The challenge will be keeping them in a moist situation while they get established. I planted them next to the daylilies I already have, those are already really happy there, so hopefully the new ones will fit right in.

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The backyard excavation project is just about done, concrete next weekend. I have not been helping as I'm having a hard enough time just keeping the garden watered these days. The most I have done was going to supply continuous ice water and to go buy a new wheelbarrow, which I hear is quite "the jiggity bomb". The boys are pitching in and really helping out, it is especially nice having teenagers around when there is heavy lifting to do. The work foreman (dear.mr.husband)is paying them off in cd's, we went and bought a bunch of new ones this weekend. More on that in a later post as I haven't listened to them all yet!

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This is probably the grossest photo I've ever posted on my blog. But I wanted to compare and contrast the wash cloths that I recently dyed vs. the ones I bought but couldn't find anywhere when I went to dye them so I had to go buy more.

Well we found them all right! You should have heard the cries of eeews and disgusting. Buried in the garden near where the patio excavation is happening. Not sure how they got out there, but there they were. Now I have to say that they are an interesting collection of colors, and I haven't had much luck at dyeing in the brown range, so my first thoughts are to wash these out and see if any of the color changes are permanent. Unfortunately they weren't near any objects that would have rusted for some cool rusty marks. So, I'll do a washout and if they are at all interesting then I'll make something out of them, if not, maybe I'll cut them up and put them in some homemade paper.

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I'm on the hunt for a new computer, probably getting a laptop (woot!) during all the back to school sales. We went out and looked at them yesterday and my mind was absolutely boggled with all the new gizmos out there, like the HP with the drawing tablet built right in to the screen, and the huge screen resolution on all the new screens, wowzer, so amazing. You get so accustomed to the computer setup that you use everyday that it is fun to go look at what the industry has come up with in the last few years since you last went computer shopping.

Self Portrait Challenge - Shine #1

I'll be honest and admit right up front that I'm not too clear on the theme this month for Self Portrait Challenge, but here is my first take on "Shine". Going for the obvious first.
I took a picture of myself in the morning before any face washing, to get the most natural shine possible. The unedited picture will not be posted on the internet. period. But with that shiny morning face it really gave my photo editing program something to work with.These two are the same picture put through a different filter. First is an inverter, second is "neon watercolor".
Zippy and I don't look too thrilled in either of them do we?

And with this post I successfully have completed nablopomo for the month of July, yay me! Will I do it for August too? Ask me tomorrow, in August.

Figuring Out Figs

We have this very enthusiastic fig tree in the backyard. It produces figs seemingly continuously. And we've been very bad at actually picking and eating them. Don't tell my brother-in-law, he loves fresh figs very much and would be scandalized. I planted it several years ago to shade that side of the house which is very sunny. Finally the tree is growing and giving us some shade. I have good memories of climbing in the fig tree in my grandparent's backyard in Sacramento. We used to get up higher than the roof which seemed so daring and challenging back then.Somehow this week we've rediscovered how much we all love figs. And there are happily lots out there that happen to be perfectly ripe. When you look at the deep purple almost black color you realize this is going to be something that is good for you. Deep colors equal lots of vitamins and minerals. Anyways, they are really good for you. And with a sweetness that is quite different than a lot of other fruits. A very complex taste. And a the fruit highest in fiber of all common fruits, thought I'd mention that since this is High Fiber Content and all. Another fruit where you are eating seeds (like pomegranate). The patterning of the seeds as they present themselves when you slice open a fig is quite interesting. I like how they've arranged themselves. I also love that green yellow contrast with the purple skin. Always good to have fabulous colors on the food you eat, right?

Don't Fear the Reaper

On Fridays during the summer the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk has free concerts of formerly popular rock bands. This past Friday, we finally got our fannies down there in the sand and watched Blue Oyster Cult rock out. They were still really good on their instruments, the singing, not so much. Anyways, it was super fun. So we stayed until the evening show and got on the Sky Ride and got this excellent view of the stage from above. And yes they did play "Don't Fear the Reaper" and even referenced the famous Saturday Night Live skit with Will Ferrell and Christopher Walken (I Gotta Have More Cowbell). Some hilarious person brought their own cowbell and played along with the song, almost in time even. Sheesh.

I love this picture of the boys in the Sky Ride. The stage is down in the bottom left corner.
And I'm thinking hard about the beautiful Merced River canyon that we just drove through coming back from Yosemite. Which is on fire now. On both sides of the river. It was so dry (except for the river), I'm not surprised that the fire is growing so quickly. May it be extinguished soon!

Hollyhock Dancing

We had a breezy afternoon and I happened to be out near the hollyhocks on my deck.
Their petals were fluttering and waving so attractively that I had to stop and take notice.
Don't you love it when plants have to flag you down just to get you to stop and "smell the roses".
Some do this in unattractive ways, overgrowing where they're supposed to be, turning weedy and gangly in the teenage years, etc. But some are just so quietly lovely you can't help but admire their understated prettiness.
Just like some people I can think of.. When you look at just the flower, they look so tropical (very much like a hibiscus!) don't they? I just love the translucency of the petals, you can see the water content in there, the petals are quite juicy.
Turns out they are edible and quite yummy in a non-spicy nasturtium kind of way. I was just looking up edible flowers, and there are quite a few on this list that we grow, but don't eat. Seems like a good project for the next year as everything flowers out, to see if any of them are tastier than others.
I'm introducing some new seeds to my garden this year, as all my previous hollyhocks have come from the seeds I got from my grandma more than ten years ago. They keep re-seeding themselves, but I'd like to try and grow the Black Watchman, which was grown by Thomas Jefferson just for variety's sake.

Study in Sepia

Here is the latest collaborative art journal coming through on the True Colors inspired rounds. This one is based on the color Sepia. I had to look up sepia to make sure I was thinking of the "right" color. I was close, but it is much darker than I had thought. The cover was a fabulous fabric/beaded construction. I did this two page spread.
The left hand page has walnut ink over crayon rubbings, clothing pattern tissue, brown tissue paper, corrugated cardboard heart (from a heart-shaped Altoids tin) glued on to be a pocket, embroidery floss, a word card from a German/American word game, a vintage picture of a minstrel and woman from Artchix, a very large gold circle sequin, and a line out of a vintage poetry book.The game card was too bright white compared to everything else, so I painted over it with the walnut ink. Note which words are being defined.Helen, thy beauty is to me... he sings to her.This is the reverse of the card with the question: "Can she trust her minstrel?" The card is attached to the embroidery floss.Here is the right hand page.Walnut ink over crayon rubbings, vintage maps and train schedules, embroidery floss, two vintage pictures of women also from Artchix, two more very large gold circle sequins, and two accompanying lines out of a vintage poetry book. Jenny kiss'd me when we met.
Whenas in silks my Julia goes...

More Purple-iciousness

Finally got around to working on my Passion for Purple Bullseyes, applying the third and final circle. Here is how they look before being sliced and diced. I wanted to put purple on as the top circle, so I went through my giant box o' purples and used only ones that I hadn't used for the backgrounds. Wow, I guess I do have a lot of purple fabric! At least 80 by this calculation...And here they are along with Jaye's after being put through the starch spraying, squaring up and slicing into triangles routine. Adrienne is still getting hers done, which is just fine by me, I've got lots of things going on that are higher priority to finish, so no hurry there! But when those arrive, there will be 40 more triangles to play with.
This is going to be fun coming up with a new design. I'm already fooling around with a few things....

Friday Fill-In #82

A Friday Fill-In, since it is ohmygoodnessFridayalready!

My answers are in bold.

1. I believe whatever doesn’t kill you just isn't trying hard enough.

2. If you’re good at something, then you better learn something else already!

3. Why so glum sugarplum?

4. Something is out there, Fox Mulder told me so and I believe him.

5. If my life were a sitcom, it would be titled "Short Attention Span Theatre".

6. Sitting on my back porch I see a hazy blue summer sky, trees that need trimming (again!), a mimosa tree in blossom and some very bendy hollyhocks and roses trying to bloom yet again.

Too Much

I'm reaching my limit on too much. I was sitting there beading on an Exquisite Corpse piece and looked over toward my storage area in my work room. And had an internal "Aieeeee, too much!" moment.

Too much stuff.
Too many projects half done.
Too many projects never started.
Too many completed with no where to put them.
Too many have to dos, should dos, might dos, want to dos at some point.

What to do about it? It isn't healthy or useful for me to have this much, it feels like a weighing-down, an impediment to being constantly creative (or even usually creative).
Seems like a good point to re-evaluate and take stock of what I have, what I need to keep around to do what I want/like artwise, and anything besides that gets passed on or donated or tossed. No more keeping things around because the boys might want it someday (hah!), or because my grandma made it (or started it) or all the other eleventy-billion reasons I come up with, etc. etc.

Especially since we are finally readying the studio room with paint and flooring this weekend, so I can move in to my "real" studio and stop being so temporary and hesitant with where I am now.

Sounds like a plan right?
Hopefully I'll be back with an "after photo" soon.