Buried Treasure: Blasts from the Past

Today is Seth Apter's (The Altered Page) annual Buried Treasure challenge. Participants look back in time and re-post a hidden treasure. I haven't been at this blogging thing as long as others but it has been more than a year. I decided to go back to this time in 2012 to see what I was up to. As it turns out, I was up to my ears in printing weeds! Hope you enjoy a walk down memory lane and be sure to visit Seth's post today for more links to other buried treasure.

What If-ing Weeds Part 3: Plein Air Printing

Despite the fact that it was a hot Sunday in Northern Virginia, I packed up some gear (i.e. cotton fabric, opaque fabric paints, glass palettes, Rollrite brayers and my camera) and headed outside to test out a what if that's been rolling around in my head all week.

What if I lay some fabric down directly on the growing weeds in the garden and roll fabric paint over the fabric?

My first test was a bunch of dandelions in the front garden.

I found it interesting that the dandelion stems showed up in these brayer rubbings but not softer, leafy parts.

I then tried a patch of clover in the grass.

Finally, I managed to lay a piece of fabric really in the thick of it...over those pesky Velcro (my name) weeds with their furry little burrs.

Here are the results...

Interesting....

 And here is one of my favorite posts from a year ago...I just love serendipity...dont' you?

A Little Bit of Healing Magic

Butterfly hanging in my studio

Yesterday, while working at Potomac Fiber Arts Gallery, some magical things happened.

I was training a new member who is originally from Korea. At some point while we were talking, I decided to show her my mom's 80th birthday hamsa.

She was really intrigued by it and told me that it reminded her of Korean shamanic symbols. I wanted to know more. I was surprised to find out that Shamans in Korea are women. That this title and role in the community often passes from mother to daughter. But on occasion, there will be a woman who is not of shamanic lineage...she is called to this duty by a natural ability to communicate with the spirits of the ancestors...

Later in the day, a young woman came into the gallery. Although somewhat hesitant, she wanted to ask a question. Did I know of someone who might be willing to make a memorial quilt for her. Her husband, a member of the military, had recently died in action. She had his uniform and some of his clothes and could not bear the thought of giving or throwing them away.

I immediately thought of the wonderful quilting couple, Sue and Gene, who had just taken my weekend workshop. The words that best describe these two are warm and generous. They work together to create commemorative quilts and what I can best describe as healing quilts. I was most moved by the quilts they make for very young terminally ill children. These are always butterfly quilts which comfort the children and later comfort the parents.

I sent them an email last night with the young woman's information. This morning, I received an email that they looked forward to getting in touch with the young widow.

All I can say is that perhaps a bit of shamanic magic was involved...or at least a little bit of healing magic.

Back in the Weeds

Finally, got into the studio today.

It seems like forever since I last spent a day printing fabric.

I first went out into the garden to gather up more weeds.

Then to printing.

I can tell we are heading towards fall. The leaves are not quite as supple. I'll have to finish up with the weed fabrics soon.

After that I'll work on some complementary fabrics with printed grid patterns.

 Then I'll finally figure out how this is all going to come together into the final form...Weed Maps!

Thanks to all of you who sent your condolences to me about my friend, Martha. It was a beautiful service out in the church garden. During the service, a Monarch butterfly flew over the flowers at the burial site...I like to think that it was Martha, saying goodbye...

Colossal Weed Takes Over Studio

VIENNA VIRGINIA: Sighting of colossal weed in front of suburban home. When harvested, it came in at a whopping 100 inches!

I've been watching this weed grow throughout the summer wondering just how tall it would get. Even I was amazed when I measured it! I decided that this king of the weeds deserved to be recorded. I also decided that I better harvest it before the Vienna Beautification Police left a citation (just kidding).

I had to pull it out by the root ball and it was just taller than the length of my eight foot work table.

Hmm...how to print this colossus of weeds...

First, I covered it with a length of Prepared for Dyeing Kona Cotton fabric and used my Rollrite brayer with Opaque Pebeo Setacolor fabric paint to do a rubbing.

Then, I placed the weed on a second length of fabric and used my brayer to roll paint over and around it. The weed acted like a stencil.

Here are the two prints side by side.

I think there is a future piece here, combining these prints with other fabrics to create two portraits of this weed king.

Painting Fabrics: A Bit of This and That

So far, this weekend in the studio has been a bit of this and that. Deadlines for projects and preparations for classes are looming.

Last week I picked up a box of donated cotton fabrics for use in my upcoming sessions of Fiber Camp. I'll be teaching my Wrapped Wire Animals. I decided to jazz up some of the plain solids with some fabric painting and bound resist techniques. On some I twisted tufts of fabric and wrapped them with rubber bands on others I did a knotted resist. Some I just painted with designs or dribbled paint.

Although it was fun to lay them all out and admire what I'd done, each of these fabrics will now be cut into 1/2" strips to be wrapped around the padded animal armatures. The camp session is Wednesday so I'm sure I'll have some photos to share of the animals created with these fabrics.

Yesterday, I also decided to paint some color washes over one of the weed fabrics (I left the more successful weed rubbing piece as is with the white background). Here are some photos of how it looks.

Closeup detail of weed fabric

I am debated about leaving it as is or over printing with smaller leaves from the same plant.

Today's focus will be cutting fabric strips and working on the hamsa piece.

Brayer Rubbings with Weeds

In addition to working on the yellow challenge fabric and fabrics for the hamsa piece, I decided to continue with fabrics for the Weed Maps.

I went out into the weed garden and found a vine with large leaves. My plan...to make at least one piece of fabric using these leaves to do brayer rubbings. A while back, I started experimenting with What Ifing with the weeds and brayer rubbings was one of the techniques that proved to be quite successful.

I arranged the leaves under the fabric with the more textured (veiny) back sides facing up. With my foam brayer, I rolled Pebeo Setacolor Opaque Fabric Paint over the top of the fabric using different colors to pick up the texture of the leaves.

I did two lengths of fabric. In the first one, I applied the paint too thick in some areas. I'm going to paint a dark color wash over that piece.

The second piece was more successful.

I plan to do more pieces using different weeds. I want to build a stash of these fabrics so I have lots of choices and possibilities for the final art pieces.

And the winners are...

Winners of the Roy G Biv fabrics

My husband pulled these winners of the Searching for Roy G Biv Challenge fabrics out of his JMU baseball cap...

Congratulations!

Lisa, please comment here to let me know whether you would like the red cats piece or the oranges piece.

Kathy you will get whichever piece Lisa doesn' t pick.

Yesterday, I started work on samples for some magazine articles I'll be proposing. I had some fun with brown paper and cardboard. Slathered on the Mod Podge to hold it all together.

This morning I took a look and they are ready for printing and rubbings.

I have some other sample ideas in the works. Want to get these proposals off soon.

I also hope to get over to Home Depot today to finally get a look at some of the possibilities in the gardening department. I especially want to check out anything that looks like a grid or could be made into a grid. I'd like some grids to go with my weeds!

What If-ing Weeds Part 3: Plein Air Printing

Despite the fact that it was a hot Sunday in Northern Virginia, I packed up some gear (i.e. cotton fabric, opaque fabric paints, glass palettes, Rollrite brayers and my camera) and headed outside to test out a what if that's been rolling around in my head all week.

What if I lay some fabric down directly on the growing weeds in the garden and roll fabric paint over the fabric?

My first test was a bunch of dandelions in the front garden.

I found it interesting that the dandelion stems showed up in these brayer rubbings but not softer, leafy parts.

I then tried a patch of clover in the grass.

Finally, I managed to lay a piece of fabric really in the thick of it...over those pesky Velcro (my name) weeds with their furry little burrs.

Here are the results...

Interesting....