MOVE IN DAY!!!!!

Not sure when i'll be back online, while we unpack and wait for hook-ups.

This is an automated "publish on" entry. I am not around.

countdown.....................!!!!!!!!!!

(modified photo courtesy of LOLCATS)

23 hours and 32 minutes until we are in our new home and away from MIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Count with me!

1001    1002    10003   1004..............

while waiting for my son...

Second in the hand poetry series

ahhhhhhhhh, some "real" life

My darling, talented, handsome, brilliant son is coming down from Edmonton today and we will be spending the next few days together, catching up with an old friend who will be passing through Calgary and whom we haven't seen for almost 10 years. J and i are also going out to Elbow Falls today to "visit" Selena's grave and he will stay through Wednesday to help us with the move.

I haven't seen my son since before Christmas and we are long overdue for a talk and a lengthy visit. There are things that need to be said now that he is an adult, and he has things he needs to ask and share as well.

Reality, WOW, what a concept! (George Carlin, i think)

88 to go--and a CLUE

----and 19 days until Blogaversary 5! I suspect the day comes before the total of 2000 posts, as even i cannot post that much ;}

CLUE: what colours is a Hoodoo Sky?

Backing to wrapping and labelling packages.......

EC's published!

 Copies (issue) available at the website!

Update on Sat, June 27, 2009 at 2:11PM by arlee

Nellie Durand, Lesley Cohen, Julie Zaccone Stiller and myself.

conception to inception, digital to tactile

Thought i'd list this entry as "ACAD summer residency", because without the residency, i never would have attempted this. A free association type of entry too, major "what-ifing"!

I had to analyze the "layers" of this, thinking how i would replicate this image. I don't know how most people visualize art cloth with all the ingredients: do they have a solid vision first and work from the beginning to the end, or do they go backwards as i am going to do? And yes, i know, there *is* the just-let-it-happen approach as well, but it ain't gonna happen with this particular design.

I'm not enough of a whiz with digital programs, and i don't have Photoshop so i have to mentally separate the elements here.

 The "base" i think will either be a shibori technique, or rusted. I'm not into having multiple screens however for the rest of the layers---i have two screens of my own and one is already dedicated to different imagery. I*would* like to do the shibori in indigo, saving the rust for another time---assuming all the supplies ever get here.....of course, i could just use Procion as well: shibori is a technique now, not a dye bath in specific. Or, i wonder if i could make a rust bucket and let happen what would happen with some form of tying or stitching?

I want the background to also have some physical dimension and texture. That might mean stitching it rumpled to a backing layer and then screening on top of that. And the next layer might have to be screened, cut out and appliqued. See what i mean about "overly ambitious"? LOL If i end up with one small completed piece done this way, i would be happy. An Important Sample at the very least :} And who knows where that might lead?

And some details will have to be embroidered and beaded---not just hand this time, but machine work as well--time to combine the two as i have left Lalage lately in the dust, sulking.

The big BUT here is that it will have to wait until after the move----FOUR MORE SLEEPS!!!---i'll have the space, resources and time then. I will do this.

......to be continued..........

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HD1, Woman of the Cloth, is being a pain in the ass still. A year ago, i would have given up and left her to rot...I've redone her belly area three times now and am still not happy with the results--you will not be seeing the aborted attempts :} I did have a flash of insight last night that involves this, both the image itself as an idea and the little first Hoodoo:

 

 Belly baby!!!!!!

......to be continued.......

 :)

overly ambitious as always

I AM going to figure out how to screenprint this. I've been messing about with effects and digital manipulation in Irfanview and so far, this is the most intriguing of the lot.

Shibori and screening? Hand stitch and beading on top of course :}

Update on Fri, June 26, 2009 at 6:18PM by arlee

screenprinting workshop

I don't know if it was the motif, the technique, or the colours or what---oh hell, it was all of it-- but i had a fabulous time in Siri's interfacing silkscreen mini-workshop last night! The last time i silkscreened (16 years ago), we used Polyfab--nice enough but leaving a stiffer hand to the fabrics, and of course it mostly sits on top as a paint. Procion with its additives, in an alginate thickener was heaven.

I forgot however to take a picture of the screen! What you do is take a piece of interfacing and create a stencil in effect, paint a few spots with some of the thickened dye as a resist, then attach the whole to your screen.

screen printing with interfacing

Below, Christina and pointing-teaching Siri :} Siri has taken workshops from Jane Dunnewold so this was much from the "horse's mouth" but with Siri's spin on it---FUN :}

One of my favourite areas. Oranges, go figure!  One thing that i thought was funny, was that i as a person intensely interested in texture, was peering table level at each square, pointing out the textures and lines of shading, while everyone else semed to be looking at the whole as one piece.

Tara with Siri "demonstrating". Tara, and Christina, have a lot of experience silkscreening as well.

And me! Usually since i'm the one doing the camera thing, i'm not in any shots. Christina voluntarily picked up Ms Hissyfit and got a few pics for me, proving i *was* there and participating :}

arlee screen printing with interfacing and Procion

I was the slowest with the screen. Initially i was too cheap with the amount of thickened dye and Siri would glop on more for me. My pressure wasn't even at first as i was a little afraid the screen would move, or that i would do something "wrong"---having not done it in 16 years was a bit daunting, but towards the end, they let me fill in all the spots "missed"--by that point i was having a total ball!

After all the spots are done, there's still some white showing because of the resist:

screen printing with interfacing before last unifying layer of Procion

Tara fills the whole with a thinner layer of yellow with an open screen to unify and cover the whites:

And VOILA!

the completed silk screning with interfacing

I hear the piece will be divided into four and we each get a piece---yum!

I have two screens still from my Cap College days. You can bet that i will be trying this, having the space in our new backyard now! ARGH i wish move day was here and gone!!!!!!!

The only problem is ya can't get sodium alginate in Calgary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It has to be ordered and mailed from Vancouver or Toronto or wherever. Order time :}

The ThiorheaDiarhhea hasn't arrived yet either for the indigo, so that is on hold still too....all the things i wanna do---i guess i'm being given a lesson in patience!

Update on Fri, June 26, 2009 at 11:46AM by arlee

The PREMIER art cloth site, the Queen, the Last Word, the To Be Aspired To.

melt"up"

:) :0 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My lovely studio assistant and talented mannequin, Madame LaToussa, is quite raring to get out of her corner. She wants to be in the studio again, not relegated to a piled up corner, with feathers up her nose and rolled paper sticking in her butt crack, such butt as she has.....

I sympathize. I feel the same!

I'm at that point in packing where there are a million small things and no boxes---and you know that just hucking things into any available container means not being able to find it when you NEED it. And how small a box is too small???????

It scares me to think of packing these:

No matter how careful i am, Greyman's slinging of things usually results in loose ones somewhere....on previous moves, i have found spares in the coffee,the bedding, with his tools and crammed in inaccessible cracks of boxes ready to be thrown out. I might require that one blue bead.

Also, one should also be careful about leaving what one needs each day before, during and after the move. On Tuesday morning, i couldn't find my eyeliner. There was however, a blue metallic marker in my purse: i think it will last another few days, as it doesn't wash off.............might get me right through to move day...........just need mascara again...hmm, what can i sub there?????