Bittersweet Endings

I filled out the cancellation form for The Natural Surface this afternoon, it was a bittersweet moment after having put many hours of time learning how to use the network and then finally adding content to the network.  And then I did the math,

What's next??? I have some really exciting projects waiting in the wings that I will be announcing on Monday June 1st!  Yes I will still be working with natural dyes, earth pigments, ochers, and rust! Yes, my eBooks and Videos will still be available!!! Yes, I will still be stitching like a mad woman using my natural dyed fabrics, fibers, and threads!  And YES I will still be sharing my journey with you!!!

Paring Down & New Beginnings!!!

Paring down, starting with my websites and blogs, and soon to be my wet studio, and have new goals and an actionable plan for future art and designs. I'd do handsprings from the excitement, but my allergies are preventing me from doing so today, lol.

I have two immediate goal dates, September 6th to get my new designs/collections for licensing up onto my blog (group accountability is great for this!!!) and October 4th for the Open Studio Tour. I need to deep clean for the tour, which means an opportunity to get rid of stuff I haven't used in years and probably won't be using again anytime here in the near future, and get prints made of newly created works of art for the tour!

The next goal after that is the Month of November which is National Writing Month and the goal is to get my last Natural Dye Book finished, and hopefully the app (by the end of December) and then it's on to other activities. I'm culling the Natural Surface Academy, etc., too many things on my plate which prevents me from creating and doing what I really love! Also no more teaching!!!

The 60 Day Crow (Bird) Challenge has been a wonderful experience, I will do the big reveal here in a few days.  I now have plans to run this challenge again, as it was quite popular!

A Different Direction

Well sorta, I'll still be incorporating Queen Anne's Lace onto these new panels, that I found earlier today while cleaning my studio, but this time I'm also adding my birds, crows, etc., to the mix.  Yes, I'm much happier about this change in direction, what I will do to resolve the other six panels I haven't decided yet.

I used my Black Birds in Tree Stencil from StencilGirl Products for the left side of each panel, and will be adding other crows, birds, and of course Queen Anne's Lace to the right side of each panel along with some text.

The New Book and an eBook Sale!!!

The cat is out of the bag and yes I really am working on a new Natural Dyeing eBook!  I've been asked what to expect, well I won't say what the topic is exactly there will be, however, plenty of bells and whistles for those of you using smart tablets!  Interactive video, apps, and the like, see I've been a busy gal the past few months and I've got to say it's very hard keeping what I've been doing secret!!!

I'm hoping the big reveal will be sometime around Valentines Day 2013 so until then here's a Christmas Holiday sale for my existing eBooks!

All eBooks $3.99

 

 

Click here for the eBooks!

Gearing Up for New Work

Bjorkboda hanging on the shelf on the far wall.

I compost dyed these about seven years or so ago, it's been so long now I don't remember when exactly.

 

Black gutta on compost dyed silk chiffon fabric.

Look familiar???  Yes I'm finally going to work with this piece, note it's in the header of this blog and one of the main photos in my books.

New Work Coming Soon!

Digitally printed silk organza overlaying a piece of logwood purple dyed silk organza, the small red strip of fabric on top is madder lac dyed silk organza net.

The Cloud

Decided to make some program upgrades this past week, and finally decided to subscribe to Adobe's Creative Cloud, instead of buying the CS6 outright.  Am currently downloading the programs of my choice, yeah, and am hoping to roll out the newest book, with imbedded video no less, sometime next month!

The Wall

As an artist have you and your artwork hit "the wall" yet?  More thoughts on this one tomorrow.

New Bits and Pieces in Progress

Happy New Year

Happy New Year Everyone!  This year is promising to be an exciting year already. 

New Fall Colors

New Fall Colors - Silk Cocoons

Extreme Embroidery

Extreme Embroidery
January 14th February 16th
4:30-6:30 pm
Fisher Art Center, Marshalltown IA.

New Vinyl

There's nothing like new vinyl on my table to make me realize just how beat up the old piece was, it was 5-6 years old I think... it might have been older I'm losing track of things as I get older.  Anyway, our local WM still sells fabric so I was able to get a replacement vinyl for not too much money, which says a lot when you need 4 continious yards of the stuff!

Today's Painting Session

Part of my oil pastel collection, the fat ones in the round tub are cattle, or sheep, markers.

I pulled out my ThreeFold magazines the other night and was reviewing some of their techniques. I was monoprinting with acetate sheets back in 1995 when I couldn't afford a really nice large glass plate to print with - the zines are very well written.

I've had this set of pastels since 1995 my classmate gave me his set of deluxe rembrant oil pastels - a wonderful gift for a starving artist at that time!

Today's painting session included a little bit of everything on paper, I was working with some of my older paints and pastels testing their viability.