It's been an interesting week. I've had a headache now for about two weeks off and on and it's making me feel a bit stabbity. So things are a bit slow going. But on the painting front I've finished up 7 paintings total so far this year out of 100. Only one this week, but I think it was a good one.

I've had a thing with hands lately. I don't know why. I guess because mine always seem so useless and such a pain, so I find other peoples much more interesting. After my kids saw this painting they were talking about the hand and we started putting our hands on our faces in different ways. Fun times. My hands and arms are definitely not as flexible as they were when I was a kid.

Fun things are in the works. I'm excited about some different opportunities that have come up. I will hopefully have some details to share soon. 2012 is definitely going to be a better year.

Hello! I hope you all are having a great week. It's been a bit of a rough one for me. I started having bad pain on Sunday and ended up having to spend a few days on pain medication sleeping through it. Not my favorite way to spend my days. But I'm back with the living and feeling better, so bring on the sunshine and art!

I finished up this painting last night that I started on Saturday.


As I was working on him, he made me smile a ton. There is just something really warm and fun about him. His name is Mikke and he's looking for a new home to hang around. He loves all kinds of music, but is particularly fond of The Doors and Jimi Hendrix.



I often get asked where the characters I paint come from or what is their story. My work really stems from relationships with loved ones, whether they be family or friends. I turned 36 in November and came to a realization that many people I know and love are loosing people they love. Friends are loosing parents and grandparents to ill health and old age. For a while it seemed every other day I was hearing about someone dying. It really hurt my heart to see people I love struggling with the sense of lose. Then sadly I went through my own hard time loosing my maternal grandmother, who was one of the main reasons I got started in art when she taught me to sew and knit as a child. She introduced me and encouraged a love of arts and crafts and that spread to a love of the folk art movement. Her life really influenced who I became as an artist. It felt like this great hole in my heart had been made. I will always regret that she was never able to see my art hanging in a show.

But instead of letting that weigh on me I felt like creating some art to honor the people who have meant something to my loved ones. Mikke was born out of the huge lose felt by a friend when his grandmother passed away in 2011. She was the constant source of love and stability during his childhood, so her passing has left a huge void in his life.



My friends grandmother was someone who was definitely a part of her generation doing all the things women her age did to raise a family. She created a home for them and enveloped it in safety and comfort. But as she grew older she also knew to have fun and had a great sense of humor. Mikke is ready to have fun and dance the night away, but is surrounded by a pattern that mimics some of the traditional shapes used in quilts as a reminder that our loved ones live on in our hearts.

I don't usually make resolutions for the new year, but this year I thought it would be a good idea to have some goals to help focus my career as well as my personal well being. On top of doing 100 paintings this year I am painting from my soul rather then painting what I think people want to see. I've been an artist fulltime for about 12 years now and in all that time I've never found a place where I truly felt that I fit in. I'm always not enough of something or to much of another thing. The art world is like one big competition that never ends. You are competing with yourself as well as every other artist to get your work seen and for most of us to make money to support our families or ourselves. I'm always trying to find a balance in my work so that it's commercially acceptable, but true to myself at the same time. But I still get comments from more traditional galleries that I'm to contemporary, to urban, to street art. So this year I'm all about painting from my soul and not worrying so much about what venues think. I'm hoping eventually some of the different less traditional kinds of venues will see my work and think that we'd fit well together. I've never been very mainstream in life, so it seems fitting that my work really isn't mainstream either.

I'm also working on listening to my body and acknowledging better when I am not doing well and taking care of health issues when they start rather then trying to pretend I'm okay. BUT I am also working on painting every day. Even when I don't feel well. Even if it's only for a few minutes. If you're going to be good at something practice and consistent work is the key. I've had a headache for three days that makes it hard to do much, but I've still managed to get painting time in. I started the painting above last night and squeezed in a few hours this morning. Our new neighbors are having their carpets cleaned and the company is running a very loud generator, so I had to stop working due to the noise killing my head. But hopefully later I can get back to it. It's at the very early stages, so the figure doesn't even have the first layer on it yet. But I always enjoy seeing where a painting begins and how things change over the course of time. My paintings are always made up of tons of layers, so taking pictures through out the process is always fun.

One of my favorite art blogs,My Love For You has a great post about New Years Resolutions. Meighan polled a lot of creative folks on Twitter and Facebook about what their resolutions and goals for the new year are. She included my thoughts from twitter as well as lots of other good ones. Check it out and be inspired!

Happy New Year!

Welcome to the first Monday of a new year. It doesn't seem like a new year yet. It seems like it always takes a few weeks to get into the swing of a new year. I have some different plans, but the major one is to complete 100 paintings this year. There is no set size or theme, just the idea to really get down and paint from my soul for the rest of the year. I'm excited to see what comes of it.



I finished the first painting today and I'm so happy with it. I took my time with it over a few days trying new things and really just spending a lot of time loving on the painting and thinking about the joy I get from painting.



As I was painting and layering on the colors and the face started to come to life she started to remind me of Janis Joplin. Janis always seemed to have this look of joy on her face when she was singing or dancing around on stage. I think like a lot of creative folks, Janis was a very troubled gal, but who had such a huge passion for her art. As I was working on the painting my talented amazing friend, Samantha Kira Harding told me that she thought of my style as punk folk. That is just perfect! I told her I was going to steal that. And it definitely suits the feel of this painting. Janis was around during such an amazing time when creative minds were all around sharing love and hope. I hope in the new year we can bring some of that back and make the world a calmer more love filled place.

Winter projects

Where did Autumn go? It seems like it always goes so fast. I know the beginning of December isn't really considered Winter yet, but it always seems like it is. Where I live we don't really have a cold winter like other places, so we don't get such a drastic change. I'd love to have snow once. Thankfully at least our house faces beautiful mountains that get covered in snow, so we get to enjoy the view.

December always brings Christmas and winter projects around our house. I like to make a lot of Christmas presents for family and friends, because they are so much more personal and fun. But because of having arthritis and having Fibromyalgia, which is causing bad pain lately, I cut back on the amount of things I make. And started early this year. I had packages mailed off before December 1st, leaving me with only one major Christmas present left to make for my parents. I started it in the middle of November and work on it every day, hoping it will be finished in time for Christmas.

Meanwhile I'm also working on another project that has become really relaxing and fun. Something just for me, which is something I hardly ever do anymore. I'm always so busy working on paintings or dolls for my shop that I often don't have time to do much else. So when I heard about this wonderful idea I knew I had to be part of it.

Melanie Testa a wonderful artist who has spent the last year battling cancer and kicking it's butt, decided to do a project in December to help get back into being creative and blogging. This really spoke to my heart as I struggle with blogging during the times when I don't feel well. Which lately has been more often then not. A sweet friend told me to blog about it, because others who are dealing with chronic pain and illness would understand. But I still feel often like I'm just being a whiner, so I hide out in my cave. One day I'll find a better balance for blogging and sharing about that stuff. I was hoping that Melanie's idea would give me a push to blog a little more since I'd have a fun reason to share.

She is doing what she has called, Rockstar Boro. Who doesn't love anything to do with being a rockstar? Traditional boro is a Japanese term that is about mending old clothes and reusing them. It's something that really speaks to my recycling loving heart. So Rockstar Boro is in the spirit of traditional boro, but adding your own unique flavor to it. Creating a garment out of an older one in your own style. Melanie is working on a velvet wrap. Others have chosen old coats, kimonos, and shirts. You can check out and join the Flickr group if you are interested in participating. There are no rules, no cost, just fun! Everyone works at their own pace and does what feels right for them. The perfect sew along project for everyone.

I started out with an old shirt that I purchased years ago on a trip to Seattle. It cost me 25 cents from the Goodwill Bin store where you buy things by the pound. It is the softest fabric and I hated to get rid of it, even though it had become very thin and had tiny holes in it. I took another shirt that also had gotten a bit old and cut it up to make the sleeves a bit longer.



So far I have managed to add a wing onto the back. I sketched out a wing quickly on some white cotton fabric, then filled it in using ink pencils and lots of water. It gave it a nice light watercolor effect. Then I used DMC floss to attach the wing to the back of the shirt. Next up is to do the other wing.

Dyeing with natural things and things I had around the house

I've always been interested in natural dyeing or what is sometimes called eco dyeing. I like the random organic designs you can achieve using found things like plants, leaves, flower petals, acorns, walnut husks, and rusted objects. I gathered up some things from our yard and from our kitchen cupboards and gave it a go with some fabric I had in my stash.



I did fabric in different batches to not cross contaminate things. This batch I put into a jar, because I was using things that you would not want to put into a pot or a dish that you ever use for food. I wet the fabric, which was linen and silk, then poured on tiny metal shavings that my husband brought me home from work ages ago. I added in a bit of rubbing alcohol and some peroxide to see if it would change the outcome, but really it just caused it to foam up a bit. I left it over night and then rinsed it all out.



The fabric all came out with nice rusted spots in different shapes and patterns. I will definitely be using it for a quilt or something fun.



The next batch I put into a boiling pot of tumeric, water, and salt. I bundled up the fabric and tied it like you do for tie dyeing to hopefully get some nice random patterns of white or lighter areas.



The tumericed fabric came out brighter then I expected. It has gorgeous rich color and some nice patterning. Not much of the color washed out during the rinsing and cleaning. I was really happy with the results.



This piece was "printed" with a home made foam stamp using raw egg as the ink. It was very easy to do, but you might get a better print with a firmer stamp. I used an embossing gun to dry the egg before putting it into a dye bath of cranberry sugar free drink, water, and some blue food coloring. I let it all cook for about 20 minutes, then let the fabric cool before rinsing it and cleaning it. The egg ink resulted in march darker areas on the fabric.



These two pieces were some sort of napkin I found in my stash. I think it might be linen or a linen blend. I tore it in half then submerged it in a glass measuring cup with leftover tumeric, water, coffee grounds, and some old molasses we've had in our cupboard for ages. I figured we might as well try the molasses rather then just throwing it away. I microwaved the whole thing for about 4 minutes then let it sit and cool for a while before rinsing it and washing the fabric. I love the color and the different shades that came out.

Over all for no money and using fabric I already have this was a lot of fun. I now have some great new fabric to use in art quilts. I will be trying more of this soon. I'm going to hit up the thrift store when I can afford it to get some more silk and linen hopefully.

The Circle of Life, a new art quilt

Recently my grandmother, Millie passed away. She and my mother were the ones who took the time when I was very young to teach me how to sew. And then when I was in junior high she taught me how to knit. She also instilled in me the idea that you can do anything you desire to do with enough hard work. I truly believe I am the artist I am thanks to my grandmother and mom who encouraged the creative part of me as a young child and gave me a good foundation of skills to start with. I'm thankful they taught me how to use a sewing machine, how to read a sewing pattern, and how to adjust patterns to fit my size. They set me up so that eventually when I started doing things on my own I had this great set of mental skills to be able to create things often times without a pattern, just from an idea.

I was sad when I was unable to attend my grandma's funeral due to my health and the kids being in school. My grandparents live in Arizona, about a 7 hour drive from my home. I needed to in some way of my own deal with her passing and feel that I some how honored her memory and the part of my life that she helped create. So when my mom mentioned bringing my grandmother's things home with them I asked if I could have some of her clothing to make something out of it. I wasn't sure at the time what it would be, but eventually decided an art quilt would really be fitting as years ago my grandmother was a fabulous quilter and I would have never become a fiber artist without her. I was and still am sad that she never got to see my quilts hanging in a gallery. But I like to think that now that she's up in heaven she knows how much she influenced me and how thankful I am for her.

(If you click on any of the photos they will enlarge so you can see them better. )


I started out with a few different blouses and cut them up into large sections, cutting out the seams, getting every thing to flat pieces of fabric. Then I decided to just make random sections to later be pieced together. I sewed the little sections together like a pillow cover, then stuffed them with fiber fill rather then using batting, because it was what I had in the house. I then sewed them closed.



Normally in quilting you sew all the squares or sections together, then put down batting, and a backing fabric, then quilt it all together. Well I did this art quilt a bit differently in that I sewed the sections and stuffed them with batting, then did the quilting on them before pinning all the sections together.



I then sewed all the little sections together with DMC Floss, so the stitching would stand out a bit more.



After it was all sewn together I added a bit of color using ink pencils and permanent markers. After coloring on the fabric with permanent marker I put rubbing alcohol on it and the colors spread out and give it that nice bleeding effect.


Once the "dyeing" was finished I added black and white buttons. And got a stick off a tree from our yard and painted it white to use as a hanger.

My thoughts when I was working on the quilt was that my grandmother really loved pink and blue, so all of the quilting is done with pink and blue floss. I did the repeated circles, because life really is circular and also to me circles always make me think of a family unit. And the different sections represent that life is also lived in stages. The buttons also make me think of family and mending clothes for them.



I am really happy with how the quilt came out. I've hung it up in my studio space to remind me of all the good times I had with my grandmother. One of the other great things about doing this was it renewed my desire to sew again. I had taken years off from it due to it causing so much pain in my hands. It still isn't easy and does cause pain, but by working in small sections I can hand quilt rather then trying to push a big quilt through my machine, which was a real problem for me. This small quilt was all the fun of creating without the tears and frustration.



This quilt is so much different then what I use to make, but it feels good to explore doing more abstract quilts that are more about the stitching and embellishment then composition. I'm going to clean out my fabric closet finally and get rid of some of the stuff I will no longer use so I can actually find the fabric I would really like to try to work with. I also have some procion dyes I have never used, so eventually I think it might be fun to try some dyeing.