Sheep Creek Weavers' Dye-in

 Another beautiful day of creating out doors. Lyn Pfleuger hosted another great day and kindly shared her dyeing expertise. I successfully rejuvenated an old macrame purse with indigo die and have three new pieces of natural dyed silk for making felt scarves - can't wait to get to felting them.

Terri Bibby Saori Weaving Workshop

Much to my surprise I signed up for a Sheep Creek Weavers weaving workshop with Terri Bibby that turned out to be a very happy accident. Not that I don't want to learn how to weave, but I already have too many things on the go. However, this turned out to be the best basic introduction to weaving that I could hope to get. Not to mention, it was an enormous amount of fun. I would highly recommend it to weavers and non-weavers alike.

Horse of a Different Colour

My first horse commission! It definitely stretched my imagination. The objective was to paint a customer's horse - but not realistic: something abstract with bright colour (pink and blue). The first challenge was to make sure that the face looked "right." I am not a horse person, but have enough friends who are to know that they see horses with as much recognition of correct proportion and detail as the rest of us have for human faces. So ... I decided to start with a sketched study and run it by the customer. All went well and my customer confirmed if looked like "Echo" so I thought I was well on my way. The down side of doing this is that Echo's face ended up more representational that I originally planned - I somehow felt committed to the detail once I had it, so opted to rely on colour to create abstraction. 

Then came dealing with the colour. I think I spent as much time on this piece as any other painting that I have ever done. I experimented a lot with the impact of adjacent colours and am happy with the final product. I am especially pleased with the colour detail (see last photo). The concept was to have Echo echoed in the background, incorporating hints of the ears, head and main into it.

Fibre Embellishments in Felt

I took a trip up to Legacy Studio last week and came away with lots of inspiring beautiful dyed fibres to experiment with.
I made two tea cozies trying out some of the fibres as well as adding some new top handles.
The rainbow effect was created with rainbow dyed silk lap. I added some coloured wool and pulled silk in the second version (on right) to accentuate the rainbow colours. I love the sheen and wiggly effect of the silk lap caused during the shrinking of the wool - it reminds me iridescent scales.


I also created some texture by adding glass bead resists during the felting process (bottom). I drizzled some dyed banana fibre to add some purple and orange "threads" as well some purple bamboo tops. Fun, fun, fun!

ACAD Fibre Fortnight

Fibre Fortnight is fast approaching at ACAD. The cloak that I made in fibre class will be on exhibit. I am also donating "ACAT" to the silent auction fundraiser.

Introducing ... ACAT

ACAT hopes to curate an art show entitled Cat Scratch Fever.

" My fellow feline artists have long awaited a venue to display our work as a cohesive body. We hope to enlighten humans that our deconstructive sculpting of furniture is not just an instinctive drive to sharpen our claws - we are challenging the meaning of refinement and permanence, providing commentary on trends in interior design, and, most importantly, testing the strength of the ancient bond between humans and felines. We hope that our human roommates will come to embrace our efforts for what they are: performance art rather than annoying idiosyncrasy. If not ... oh well. It is not like we are going to stop anyway." 

Needle-felt: Trolls, Leprechauns, and Dragons - Oh My!

Patrick

 There seems to be a lot of interest in mystical creatures these days and they are fun to make with lots of scope for the imagination. Here are a few of the recent guys.

Leo Trollstoy

Draven

Kieran

Back to School Update - Drawing Class

I finished Drawing 120 last Fall and learned a great deal from it. In this class, drawing was interpreted quite broadly as you will see. There was a lot of work to be completed. There were out-of-class assignments and in-class workshops as well as lots of opportunities to practice drawing everything from figures to projected images and photos.
Besides actually learning to draw, a big emphasis seemed to be on learning how to develop the content and concept of a piece. There was an almost uncomfortable amount of "deep" thought and introspection at times, but I am glad to have done it. Our first assignment was to use a variety of media to create a three-act narrative using self-portrait as a vehicle. I chose to portray the integration of right and left brain thought.

The next assignment involved creating four drawings that captured our single personal place of sanctuary. Each had to use different media and be on a different surface.

These are the two that were the most
successful to my mind. I chose to portray different aspects of my home: my favorite spot to explore the world via reading, and a whimsical version of the dining room set that I inherited from my grandparents that has had generations of family meals gathered around it.





After completing these, we were to utilize some or all of the imagery from the earlier drawings to create a final complex drawing (at least 3X4 ft). It was a very interesting exercise to play with overlaying a number of different images.










One of the most fun in-class workshops was using graphite powder to create a drawing based on a collage of totally random images. Creating the collage on the right was half the fun. I loved the juxtaposition of the bears in the window and the red-neck jean legs merging into ostrich feet.

We finally got to work on small drawings in the next major assignment, but of course that meant lots of them. We were to investigate, with poignancy and intimacy, the relationship between objects and various areas of the body. I chose to look at communication through touch.










My favourite of the group was the finger on a touch screen. I have been thinking about doing some pieces on the impact of technology on the human experience and this is one that has been on my mind for a while. It is a bit of a play on Michelangelo's Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel.

The last assignment focused on the body and looking at qualities of a drawing as a metaphor for and abstraction of the body. We were to choose two adjectives associated with the body and create abstract drawings to express them. Next we were to choose two bodily experiences and to portray them in non-literal ways. I went a bit nuts with this one using scorched velum to portray mortality, string stretched across a root to represent tension, a macro plaster version of a finger print, and a felt based on a microscopic view of tissue. From these works we had to complete a large scale work (4X5 ft) that built on the strengths of these pieces.









I tea and rust stained antique linens, scorched them and suspended them on an antique dressing screen. Then I made a felt piece in roughly the shape of a body (below) and suspended it in front of the screen. It has a very primitive, universal feel to it that I enjoy.

Once again, this was a very worthwhile course from my point of view. Not only did I experiment with a lot of new techniques, I feel like I approach making an art piece in a different way. I am inclined now to experiment with studies and develop the concept as I go rather than trying to plan out a piece before I begin.