winter textures

We have been thoroughly snowed in and iced over here in the New York tri-state area. Some of my outdoor Christmas decorations are now staying probably till the end of March as I would need a sledge hammer to get them out any earlier....

Despite the severe weather now, I love winter and am always photographing all the stunning scenery that nature provides us. And even though my usual art fodder is architecture, nature still inspires me and if nothing else gives me a reason to play around in one of my favorite mediums - Photoshop.

The following photos were all taken on the fly with my phone and then played with in Photoshop. I can't even begin to keep track of all the different filters, saturations, transformations and layers that these photos have gone through. But I can tell you that I had fun playing!

icy lichen before the snow

icy lichen after I was done with it

snow patterns on outdoor furniture

snow patterns photoshopped

beautiful snow capped trees

snow capped trees digitized

icicles into snow

icicles maximized

So what should I do with these now? The thinking cap is on. Perhaps one day you might recognize one of these in my future artwork. Or not.

PS in March I'll be teaching a Photoshop based 5 day workshop at the Hudson River Valley Art Workshops. Come play with me!

Drastic Measures

Kristin today.

One of the art lessons that has made a lasting impression with me was an experience my dad had when he was in art school. He told me that after laboriously drawing the day's model, the instructor had all the students erase their work, turn it upside down, and start again. The moral of the story is not to think that your work is ever too precious for improvement.




I have been working on this quilt on and (mostly off) for over a decade. The whole tale is on my blog today. It had changed in meaning for me, and I have tried to bring it up to date. After much laboring, I have come to the realization that it is just not working, and I have to take drastic, art school type, measures.




Sometimes (probably more often than we are willing to admit) there comes a point where something just can't be fixed and it has to be tossed or completely reimagined. I decided for the latter and painted my heirloom quilt and then cut it up. I plan to stitch some bolder designs over the panels and mount them on canvas as wall decor. It still may not work, but at least I will have been bold and tried; besides, it's not like the original project was going anywhere anyway.



Interestingly, I just read an article on Ragged Cloth Cafe this morning about creativity and fugitive artwork. It's worth checking out.

playing

With plastic in my case. Hi, Natalya here to declare that I have fallen into a deep dark hole that is called experimentation. What if I try this? What if I now do this? What if.......

You would think that after playing around with a material for a while, let's say a year, you run out of the "what if's". Not true in my case.  At least not with the recycled plastic shopping bags. Or dryer sheets for that matter. Here are few detail shots of my recent experiments:

layered with packing material batting, stitched and painted with acrylics

dryer sheet painted with gesso

plastic drop cloth, drawn on and stitched

translucent plastics layered and machine stitched

layered, stitched and sponge painted with acrylics

It's a good thing that there are some deadlines looming, as they make me finish my experiments and draw conclusions. But the experimenting goes on even with the deadlines, it's so much fun I can't help myself. I must find out what if.....

What are you experimenting with?

fooled myself

Happy New Year! There is nothing like starting the new year with a realization that I have managed to fool myself yet again.. Natalya here and here's the story:

Back in 2007, inspired by Jeanne Williamson I started a weekly journaling project in which I explored different techniques, experimented with recycled materials and generally didn't give myself any rules except for size. I kept this going for two years and then got bored and decided to do a daily sketch journal. Sketching turned into experimenting with collage and painting and printing and doodling all on the pages of the said journal. Then in 2010 I got all fancy and did monthly diptychs based on my sketches from the year before. The following year I embarked on a very ambitious project of daily journaling on fabric. I had it all figured out: monthly prompts, experiments, binding into monthly books and then....I fizzled out and quit. Yup, quit. I thought that was the end of my journaling. Got it all out of my system, no need for more.

What I didn't even realize was that I hadn't really quit, I had just changed my media. You see, back in the beginning of  2009 I started something silly and frivolous on my blog called Wordless Wednesdays. It was really just blog fodder for when I couldn't think of anything else to blog about. I copied the idea from a bunch of other bloggers, sort of fell into a trend. Without even realizing it became a habit. Somewhere in 2012 the Wordless Wednesdays became more and more architecture based, only natural as my artwork was concentrating more and more on architecture. And they became not so wordless too somehow... In 2013 I gave myself a real challenge of making Wordless Wednesday an experiment in Photoshop using photos of NYC only.

So call me slow...but it was only this week as I planned out my Wordless Wednesday challenge for 2014 that I realized that I had never quit journaling! I just changed my journaling media... Isn't hindsight great?

So what's your journaling story? Weekly, monthly, everyday? Textile, paper or computer? And how has it morphed over time?

Testing, Testing, 1,2,3

Kristin here. I hang my show in a week, and I feel like I'm pretty much ready for it. So now I have time to move on to the next ideas I want to explore. One of the things I want to do involves making a full-sized sun-print of a person. When I get the chance, and have the materials, I try out a technique.

Plan A and B: The first try was painting fabric with slightly diluted, water-based, fabric paint, and then laying on it until the sun had wicked away the moisture and created an image.

Unfortunately, 45 minutes in the made me sweat, which affected the print in an interesting, but not appropriate for my purposes, way. I tried again adding a cloth underneath and a shirt to absorb sweat, and got much better results. However, when I washed the fabric, a lot of the luscious color washed out an the whole piece had a worn, scuffed, look I didn't like.

Plan C: The next thing I tried, was to use my husband as a stencil and spray fiber reactive dye around him. Dye creates a much richer color, but boy was it hard to wash off my man afterwards. Unfortunately, spraying dye doesn't saturate the fabric the same was as immersion, and the resulting fabric was very light after I washed it out. Not the look I was going for. Bummer.

Plan D: So, I mixed mixed the best of both worlds and painted my cloth with Inkodye, a dye that reacts in the sun, and used my hand as a stencil. Love it! But then when I tried to go full size, I dipped the fabric in the dye instead of painting it on (speed was of the essence), I laid my fabric on a cloth to absorb sweat, and I used a different fabric. My resulting print lacked the contrast of the test. 

Plan E and F: I'm learning and refining as I go. I'm pretty certain that I will actually use parts from each of my tests and patch together a pretty interesting image. I will try the Inkodye again with my husband (I need male and female parts) using conditions closer to my test. Depending on how that works out, I will probably also switch to small scale and print individual body parts as needed, using the Inkodye or paint.

Although none of these images are exactly what I want, I'm not frustrated. It's all part of the learning and exploring process. Each try teaches me something. Not knowing exactly how something will turn out is part of the adventure. It will all work out in the end, so I know the investment of time and materials is worth it.

My Inner Mad Scientist Has Taken Over

Liz Kettle here today...aka Experiment Girl!
Like some of my fellow 8 that Create artists I have been experimenting quite a bit this summer.

Is it the blazing summer sun that has us all asking 'hmmmm...what if I...'?

I don't have a ton of fascinating photos to share with you. I forgot to take one yesterday when the UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel) exploded everywhere! But exploration is such a great topic that I thought it deserved some blog time even if I don't have dozens of inspiring photos...or any.

Being the Mad Scientist in the studio has a few drawbacks.

• It isn't visibly productive. At the end of the day yesterday I had a pile of what most people would chuck in the trash and embossing enamel everywhere. That stuff is like glitter in it's propensity to find it's way into ever nook and cranny.
• At least once in the middle of the scientific process you will find yourself saying...this is the stupidest idea I ever had...maybe more than once. Maybe more like 394 times!
• You will feel uncomfortable. 
• You will feel annoyed
• You will feel like chucking things
• You will feel disappointment
• And the big elephant in the room...you will feel frustrated!
• You WILL start talking to yourself. Hence the Mad Scientist label

But, you WILL also learn a lot about the subject of your experiments.

You may uncover a new way of looking at your work

or a new process that captivates your soul.

You may discover a very cool technique.

Even if all your experiments fail you will discover what doesn't work and one night at 3am a couple months from now you will get an out of the blue bolt of lightening inspiration that sends you running back to the laboratory excited to ask again...what if I...