Painting Al Fresco- sun dyeing experiment

Sunny day...Check!
Cool comfortable weather...check!
No pressing schedule....check!
can't find the gift you bought for your friend's birthday so you want to make her something?? check!
I got this stuff out...

dy-na-flow paint, plastic takeaway cutlery, white fabric dampened, foamcore palette with freezer paper.
I started by pouring paint ( these are already thinned). Nice! Used all the colors. After the paint spread, I went to the yard, placed the cutlery on the painted fabric. Some leaves blew on so I left them and added some more.

Then I took another FQ of wet fabric, poured paint on, smooshed that one into a lump, and take it out to cook in the sun.

Some spiders crawled over and made the whole thing more halloween-y. As it dries, the pigment migrates away from the shadowed areas (cutlery) leaving an impression. Couldn't be easier except...
It works much better with really flat items so the knives and handles worked but the rest not so much.
Cole, ever interested in what Momma's doing, came by...

"There may be forks but it doesn't smell like food... and Momma has that "don't touch" look in her eye"
So he did his best guard dog impression...

After it dried, I peeked under the plastic to see if it worked. Is it interesting enough to send to my friend with the bit of gift I could find?
Here it is after drying and pressing with a hot dry iron to set the color...
.

You might be able to see the spoon, knives and fork on this shot, I got clear images of at least two forks, two spoons and four knives. The leaves, although flat, did not imprint at all.
So here's what I learned:
I think you need a hotter day, to dry it faster in order to get the pigment to move quickly enough to see a good edge.
Pouring the paint on left a lot more color and I like it... my other FQ is paler because I daubed the paint on with a sponge brush. Not quite enough pigment for me but it's perfect for a background or stenciling.
I call the experiment a success as I had fun, got to play with color, and see the cutlery images.
 stay tuned to see how I use the piece I kept....

sketch a day Fall

There is a movement called InkTober to encourage people to draw. I am trying to do a sketch a day, but am happy for any day I get to it, know what I mean?  This counts for four, right?? lol  I divided the page into fours for little vignettes that seemed less threatening. I am not trained in drawing so I'm insecure about my skills. I tried to take a class at the community college but it was held in the art room and the chemical smells gave me a migraine so I dropped out. Learning on my own by doing...

"Cardinal in repose"

From my porch I see the bird feeder, fountain and rock wall. Not composed like this but I see them so I did my own composition.

"Mums in Repose"

The chair was hard to do with perspective.

It's woven, and I made an attempt. The mums were swirls of color... to get the gist...

taken from a slightly different angle

"Poodle in Repose"

The hardest one was my first sketch of Cole


I tried to just draw what I saw, and not think about it more than that.

I captured the gesture

 

This is a re-enactment as I didn't have my camera at the moment but you get the drift.

Hope some of you are also sketching. Doesn't have to be museum worthy to be fun. It's a way of really seeing something, unlike a photo which takes a second to click. You have to take time to see. 

Today's sketch

When your words, your artwork, your good deeds are denigrated in some way, remember...

brought to you by the number 2

Remember our Saturday walkabout trip to the farmer's market? Got these two odd pumpkins. Leave it to me to be attracted to the weirder ones! I thought of several pix of twos I've been collecting so I thought I would share them... Ready for some twosomes?

In Lake Placid I took a number of photos of twos...

... do you notice how things like this crop up? Coincidences? Tell me about them!

coloring in your own sketch

Does it look different? Better, worse? I colored in with prismacolor pencil, which I also use on fabric and love. It's more vibrant in person but you get the idea. original post so you can compare

I am doing a lecture on Wednesday night at Calvert County Quilt Guild in Prince Frederick MD.
I will be teaching a workshop in paintsticks on fabric in Severna Park on Monday.

Just a little reminder that you have only to ask and I will  come share what I know with your group!
Living the creative life is a good life. LeeAnna

Saturday Walkabout...Halloween Horrors edition

Excuse me Sir, got any "dog-O'lanterns" ???

Cole here for my weekly post
You would not believe the terror I lived through on Friday night. All you sensitive type dogs and cats out there know how thunderstorms are? This time we had just had a long walk, Daddy came home from wherever he goes all day, we three were on our porch-perch and it started.

I freaked out, started panting as you do, then  Crack! Passed out! Fell on the floor! Next thing I knew Momma was standing there with a paper bag over my snout.
OMDog! (shakes head, shakes ears while I'm at it, shakes it all, hokey-pokey style)

Anyway, I survived the fainting spell, and as a reward the next day I went on a walkabout with the folks.

First stop was the farmers market for a few vege and pumpkins.

Let's see....

They all smell about the same....
you choose Momma!

Then it's off for a real walk in another neighborhood for new smells and to do a little business, heh heh

low and behold, we see one of Daddy's work friends, so of course my peeps had to stop and yakety-yak. After I petted Kelly for a looooong time, I planted it for a little doze in the sun. These are the SAME people who make me stop sniffing a Very Important Smell and come on. Sheesh!

On to the produce stand where I was tasked with choosing some mums...

How's a limited color-viewing poodle to choose here?? Momma, you're the artist...
We did select some honey crisp apples, some pickles and I petted some people while momma shopped.

Then back to the van, here we go... and all heck breaks loose!

All I did was grab and eat a kleenex on my way back into the parcel laden van. I mean, it took a second at best, and they weren't eating them for pity's sake!

What a ruckus! Cole spit it out!
riiiiiiight, mmph, almost done, there! By the time Dad pried open my mouth it was safely eaten.

You'd think they never ate one of these delicacies before. And I was quick about it too.


I don't know what these people want...do you? They are always hurrying me along, then when I eat fast on the run they make a fuss. Oy!

Another quick walk in the little park near Daddy's shirt pick-up, and Momma won't let it go! Still.
Said with that sarcastic voice I hate, "Sorry Cole, there's no tissues here"  and "Cole! do not jump in!" Like I would! It looks too much like a bath to be enjoyable, wait, is that a frog?!!
We finished the trip here...

All for the Pet... my kind of store!
Lots of treats in here including bunnies on the hoof!

No, they wouldn't buy one for me, but I talked them into some duck treats. Momma might have gotten yanked in the sniffing frenzy but it wasn't my fault she dropped the camera. 

We all got home, had a sip of water, then played in the yard. The mums look nice with the ghost lights, huh?
Wooooooo-oooof

Saturday Sketch

Gratuitous picture of Fall color!

My friend Nancy (link) and I were talking last night by phone. I wish we lived closer.
In the conversation she said she combined several patterns to compose her quilt row. She said. "I can't draw" and it reminded me of myself before I had a class with Jane Sassamon. When I said that to Jane, she basically said, "pish tosh! Sure you can!" (I paraphrase) So I did and haven't stopped since.

On sunny Saturday morning, armed with a cup of coffee, my sketchbook, my green fountain pen, my poodle, and my who-cares-attitude, I sketched in honor of both Nancy and Jane.

I started with the thought, everyone seeing this can do this, they may not want to but they can do it. They can sketch simple shapes and that's the start to drawing.

Simple flower

Becomes two. See simple lines become something recognizable. To create depth you imagine where the flower petal would keep going behind another one but don't draw in the line. BTW most people would sketch with pencil and eraser but not me.
Mistakes happen, I keep going, I just add more stuff. Same way I quilt.
Hmm, what to add next? Kaja (link here) and I have a challenge going on rock walls so...

that was fun! Color in some shadows...

coloring the shadows adding sprigs of grass.
I tried, I really did, to take photos along the way but I got into it and forgot!
A squirrel showed up, that was going to be a cat but looked more like a squirrel so I gave it claws and an acorn. All sketching done with the one pen because I was too into the process to look for colored pencils.


I like words, so I wrote, Nature designs it's own art and drew lines around it. Added a vine to soften the wall, added a path of stones.

 This is a new sketchbook. Do you know how hard it is to start writing in a new journal or drawing in a new sketchbook?? Don't want to mess them up, donchaknow.
I decided last year, lest I perish with 25 brand new journals and sketchbooks, I should just use them every day. Doesn't need to be momentous or gallery worthy. Just needs to be of the moment, and make me happy. Does it change the image to crop it??

It would change it to go over the lines with black pen and color it in.  I'll do that and show you how it came out later, what do you think? Soon as I find my watercolor pencils.  Last thing added were the words in the petals...

I took a lot of pix of twos while on vacation this summer and am compiling them into a post of twos.
What I learned today... I enjoy folk or illustrative art. It doesn't have to be fancy to impart an emotion. I enjoyed the additive nature of sketching, just adding in what felt good. It doesn't have to be approved by the salons of Paris, it has to make me happy. 

When you stop looking at what you can't do, you find out what you can do.
For more sketching like a four year old, see these  sketch posts