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

60 Days of Birds Mixed Media Challenge

Begins in 5 Days!!!

Learn more here!

Cretacolor Colored Charcoal Sticks

These arrived yesterday. I was stunned at how well the colors match my earth pigment, ocher, and clay painted fabrics.

My only regret is I wish I had ordered them sooner. Tis okay I shall be streaming in the very near future using these beasts to color fabric and paper, along with my earth pigments and soy emulsion!

A New Series is Born!

A new series has presented itself and has demanded to be created! Last night I painted the first of the fabrics for my new "Fields" series. I live streamed the painting session, and also threw down a challenge if you're interested in participating.

The fabric this morning after it has dried. Color loss of 50% is not uncommon when working on fabric.

First set of six blocks, the fabric is still wet.

Am loving this new series already. I will live stream stitching these pieces next week!

The live stream, and challenge, is available in my community Almost Stitched. You will have to join my community and watch the live stream to get the challenge!

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!

FREE eBook Give Away Happening Now!!!

FREE Rust and Clay Dyeing eBook Give Away

Now through Tuesday the 16th!!!

Click HERE for details!

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!

Stitching Again

It feels good to be stitching once again, whilest awaiting layers of drying paint to cure.  This piece is about 8x10 inches in size, machine stitched with green Aurifil thread, wool batting; I also used my Black Birds in Tree Stencil with acrylic paint onto fabric painted cotton cloth.

I shall stitch a few of the birds next, to bring them forward, and add a few beads and then this piece will be done.

WIP - Crow Panels

More layers of paint and ink to come, and birds, lots of birds!

60 Day Crow Challenge

It was suggested that I should start a 60 day challenge since I couldn't find one that was theme specific (thank you Jody Lund) I will be drawing Crows and Ravens (Corvus sp.). 

How many of you would like to participate with me in a 60 day bird/crow challenge, this means one bird/crow a day for 60 days.

The birds/crows can be drawn, painted, stitched, sculpted (if you are so inclined), digitally manipulated OR you can write about birds/crows everyday for 60 days.  Interested?

If I get 10 or more peeps interested I will start a facebook group for the challenge.  I will be starting tomorrow as I am getting ready for an Open Studio Tour, October 4th, and want to have some fresh birds to offer up for the tour.

Black Birds in Trees

Working on some Crow Cards this afternoon using my Black Birds in Tree Stencil.

The orange mat is a non-slip artist map, unfortunately there is no label on the mat so I have no idea where it came from.

I started out with a piece of painted timtex that was painted by Seta Color Fabric Paints.  I will be adding some oil bar, ink, and other yummies next, and then it's time for some stitching.

WIP Dusk at the Marsh

I am working on a stitched story piece about one of my favorite local marshes and my stencil Black Birds in Tree are the main focus in this new series.  The marshes, Cooper's Marsh & Larson's Marsh, which is just a few miles east of Ames, Iowa, are surrounded by farmland.  

Seta Color Fabric paint on cotton fabric, I painted this fabric using a salt technique sometime around 2004/05. The orange piece is a non-slip gripping pad that holds the fabric in place while I surface the fabric.

I should be able to get four smaller pieces out of the larger piece of fabric, the piece directly above this photo.

For the purple stenciled areas I'm using Galleria thick body paint as it is less inclined to bleed. I applied the paint using a stencil brush and very thin layers of paint building the image up onto the fabric, why yes my hand is sore now!

Finished, the stencil did stick to the fabric, where it came into contact with the wet paint that soon dried.

I have to admit this is my all time favorite stencil in my series!  I will probably leave this particular piece of fabric as is for the moment and work on the other three pieces.  I am toying with using my inverse stencil on one of the pieces, more to come!

Junkin in June

More washi tape, from my favorite source Pixi's in Gilbert, IA. I have to admit that keeping a personal journal has become a lot more fun now that I've started incorporating all of those elements I've been collecting, but had no place in my regular artwork!  

Picked these up from one of the vendors at JB Knacker in Gilbert, IA this afternoon during their annual Junkin in June event!  

My watercolor issue resolved now that I've been reminded that I own sets of Caran D'Ache's Aquarelle watercolor crayons as I wasn't looking forward to replacing 20 year old dried up tubes of watercolor paints anytime soon!  Now that I'm using my aquarelle's again I can take my time and buy the colors I need preferably on sale as sets or as single tubes.

Journal Pages and Stencils

From this...

To this...

I played around in a handmade journal this evening with my new paints, oil bars, and inks and my Black Birds in Tree and Three Crows Stencils.  Tomorrow I will finish out these pages after the oil bar dries.

Paints used:
Matisse Flow
Golden Fluid Acrylics

Inks used:
Daler-Rowney FW inks
Liquidtex inks

Oil bars used:
Shiva Paintstiks
Shiva Paintstiks Metallics

New Project in Progress

Black Birds in Tree Stencil and craft paints on baltic birch panel board... more later after I add more layers.

Getting There

It's the journey, not the destination!

In Progress and now with more paint.  I need to make up the glaze for the left hand side of each panel, and then I can start adding the queen anne's lace and crows to the right hand panels.  I may change the color of panel No. 6 add more pinks and yellows.

Bonus I found these six narrow panels while looking for another small sample panel, stay tuned!

Queen Anne's Lace Panels in Progress

Not feeling the love!  I'm left wondering how much better these panels would turn out if I wasn't so distracted by a million things that need to be done before my solo show is hung this weekend?

As you can see from the previous photo that each layer of paint is leading towards improvement, and yet I'm just not feeling it.  The good news is I found six gesso'd raised panel frames today that I plan to go full tilt on later this evening! 

Baltic Birch raised panel frames, taped and gesso'd another words ready for paint!

One of those Moments

When I decided to lose the red.

And was oh so glad I did!  More later am off to look at my embellishments cache while the first layer of gold paint dries.

WIP Queen Anne's Crows No0 1

I have to admit while I really like the half and half harlequin coloring of this particular niche it's really rocking in metallic gold paint!  I need to add a second coat of paint and then when it's dry enough buff on some metallic black gold wax.

I will add purple to the back of niche (inside) and I think it's pretty much done.