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

60 Days of Birds Mixed Media Challenge

Begins in 5 Days!!!

Learn more here!

Indigo Blues: Surface Design with Natural Dyes

Indigo Blues: Surface Design with Indigo

Starts March 28^th 

Indigo Blues: Surface Design with Indigo is a comprehensive Four Week online course which is a one-stop resource for anyone wishing to learn the art of Surface Design with Indigo.

During the Four Week course you develop a solid foundation of the concepts of Surface Design using Indigo. 

I will teach you the necessary core skills needed to create beautiful art cloth with Indigo!

During this Four Week course you will also learn about the history of surface design with indigo from ancient times to modern times.

Topics Covered Include:

• Immersion Dyeing
• Bound Resists including Shibori
• Potato Starch, Gutta, and a non-toxic glue resist for immersion dyeing
• Fabric painting with indigo
• Mono printing, stamping, gelatin plate printing
• Screen printing You will screen print with Rust and Tannin Patterning Techniques via screen printing as a Final BONUS LESSON.

As part of my private Facebook community, you’ll discover a global community of students, and friends, to support and to inspire you.

My passion is for you to experience the joy of working with indigo, and to learn which type of indigo vat works best for you!

Downloadable videos, which means you will have lifetime access.

Downloadable handouts, so that you can print out the information to use in your studio.

Access to my Facebook Community.

JOIN NOW AT  http://kbaxterpackwood.com/wordpress/online-classes-workshops/indigo-blues/

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!

Reds, Oranges, and Golds, are the Colors of My Soul!

Join me in my latest online creation Colors of the Earth! We will paint cloth and paper using earth pigments, clays, and ochers/ochres!!! Unleash the colors of your soul in this one week class!!!

Colors of the Earth

Begins October 17th!!!

Register Today!!!

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!

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.

Solo Show

The reveal coming and soon, until then enjoy this oil pastel drawing, on paper, I made of a local bin and silo from June 2009.

Some Bird Art

Little medallions with featuring Black Birds in Tree, alcohol inks to the left, shiva paintstiks to the right (prussian blue)

Experimenting with copic markers and gelli pens on scrap booking paper.  Barely noticeable at the bottom are three of the washi tapes I purchased last weekend.  This will probably end up as the cover for my "new to me" journal.  Crow is from my Three Crows Stencil.

More birds to come, I'm working on a major project (all new work for an upcoming solo show) the big reveal will happen and soon, until then here's my latest samples to see how the various mediums work with the stencils.

Journal Makings

I was planning on making a 4 x 6 inch journal this evening but my block of 4 x 6 solid color papers seems to have gone AWOL!  So maybe tomorrow evening instead?

WIP All Beaded Up

Now with more beads, and definition.

Creating a Strategic Objectives Journal for 2014

Am working through Lisa Sonora Beam's "Creative Entreprenure" book again, last time was 2008/09, and am now just creating my Strategic Objectives Journal.  I have to say this has been a lot of fun this time around, it especially helps that I now understand most of what she discusses, this due to five years of reading and researching how to run a business. (Raven Stencil available soon!!!)

And what would a journal be if I didn't personalize it with my own artwork?  Blackbirds in Tree from StencilGirl Products stencil with FolkArt Indigo paint for the first layer of this journal section.  I found these old manilla folders in hubs office, when I say old we're talking 30-40 years old here, and am repurposing them for my new journal. 

How I dealt with the uneven edge of the manilla folder, I simply placed a piece of old reciept journal paper under the folder edge. 

The journal paper freshly stencilled.  I'll add more layers to this piece of paper and glue it inside of the journal somewhere.  More later, I have more birds to paint now that the first layer has dried, while I think about my objectives.

Black Birds in Progress

I'm still in the layering of paint and ink stage, I will be adding more layers tomorrow and then hopefully finishing out the birds.

Black Birds in Tree stencil can be purchase through StencilGirl Products!

Part One - Black Birds in Trees Harvest

With a round object of your choice (I used a 6" plate) and a soft pencil (HB) draw a circle on your 9x12 sheet of watercolor paper.

 

 

 

Using a texture or geometric stamp, and waterproof ink, add some texture around the circular area.

 

 

Now fill the circle with some yellow paint, I used Folk Arts Medium Yellow.

Using a thin layer of grey paint the background.

The thin layer of paint will allow the background texture to show through; allow paint to dry completely.

Now apply alcohol inks and in random manner.  I spritzed the moon area with butterscotch, lettuce, and red pepper.

Not to worry the inks will dry way lighter than what you see in the image here! 

About half dry now, it will become lighter still!

Once the alcohol inks are dried take a baby wipe and in a swirling motion remove most of the ink from the moon shape on the paper.

This gives you a realistic moon shape and fall harvest coloring.  Not all of the ink will wipe away and this is fine you don't want it all to wipe away.

If you need to amp up the color for the background now is the time to do so.  Here I recharged the alcohol ink using some additional inks and a water bottle.  Spritzing with water will cause speckling, etc., to occur giving you more texture.

Place stencil of choice onto background, and using dry stencil brush techniques push the paint through the stencil onto the paper.  Here I'm using my stencil Black Birds in Tree which is available through StencilGirl Products!

Too much paint will cause the paint to go under the stencil and well creates a HUGE mess, but this piece can and will be redeemed!  Folk Art Paint - Licorice

And because sometimes I am a bit of a perfectionist, yes me, I went and created a second piece the steps of which are above, just to see if I could get the stencil portion correct!

And I managed to keep the paint in the lines this time!  Ok, the paint should be dry now I'm off to add more layers to the first version of this piece to see where it takes me, oh and to cook dinner!

Stay tuned for Part Two!

Birds and More

Getting ready for my Open Studio, for Art Crawl Iowa, in October. 
Ink on watercolor paper.

And then some down time with some hand carved and mounted stamps.

Ink on watercolor paper.

Stencil Heaven!

 

 

Tsukineko ink on watercolor paper using my two stencil designs.

Birds in Tree Inverse Stencil -  works beautifully as a mask when laying down color!

"Bird in Trees Inverse" Stencil sample.  I'm in love with both of my stencil samples, if you don't hear from me well you know the drill send whoppers and cheesecake cause it means I'm holed up in my studio!

Oooh Stencils

 

Yesterday something absolutely wonderful arrived in the mail for my approval, my sample stencil from one of my own designs "Birds in Tree"!  I've been playing with it ever since it arrived, and of course the inevitable wait time for layers of gesso to dry had to be endured, but over all I'm having a blast this afternoon!

 

More layer as these two layers should be dry and ready for the next several processes, which includes some ink/pen techniques and then more layering.  I see some numbers and text in this piece as well. 

 

Tomorrow I will have some fabric samples to show and tell. 

Auditioning Elements for a Work in Progress

Very simple, but lacking in additional interest.  The goal here is to avoid being cutesy.

The piece definately needs a pop of colour, but which colour and where?  If I attach the cochineal dyed silk organza I'll add stitching in a contrasting colour.

I'm not sure that this works either, but it's interesting... just the wrong colours and not enough of them. Acrylic on watercolor paper.

Here's a bit of gouache and watercolor, with ink sketches, on paper behind the main panel.  The main panel is still lacking, it needs a pop of something, anything... but it has to be the right element otherwise it just sits there like a lump.

So I will continue auditioning elements into the wee hours of the night, once I have this niche figured out the remaining eight niches will be a snap since I'm working in a series.  I will be adding additional elements to the outside of the niche in the form of copper and/or black brads and tacks.