Friday, June 3, 2016

Are Some Weeks Busier Than Others In The Studio?

Or, in my case are some weeks busier than others in the laundry room? I've been working on my research project for my Art Cloth Mastery Class with  Jane Dunnewold. It involved lots and lots of dyeing cloth and getting dyeing recipes perfected for me and for the other students. I prefer cloths with texture and mottling, but in this study, I needed to get solid-colored cloths so that I can cut them up into swatches and each student in the class gets the same color and value on their piece as everyone else. I'm going to prepare the samples on cardstock with the recipes for all the other students and for Jane and give it to them at our next session. I got to choose my topic. I like to work with pastels, so I chose to find the recipes to get lighter colors of each of the 12 colors on a standard color wheel plus gray plus brown. (Brown isn't shown here.) I did the standard color plus 4 tints.
Whew! That's a lot of dyeing.
     I got quite tired of making solids only so I occasionally did a scrumble with leftover dye to see if the mixed colors would split at all. I did a scrumble of the blue-green and washed it out during a thunder storm. Here's the result.

Some lightning bolts?
And of course, Opus and Andy played their part in all of this. One of days, they were wildly running and chasing each other all through the house while I was in the laundry room measuring out dye. I was glad of that because it kept them out of my way. But then it got very quiet. Quiet is not good. I went into the studio to find this...
Is that a look of guilt or contrition? NOT
There is no way I can be angry at them. I love them way too much. And there is no way I can keep them out of any room. I love their company way too much for that, too. I only keep them out when there is paint or dye involved for their own safety. 
So the last two weeks have been very labor intensive. But the hard work is done. I've learned a lot about dyeing and have a wonderful resource. Now I can get to the creative and fun part of the homework. So looking forward to it. I'm linking this to Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on the artists' blogs so that they know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.

6 comments:

  1. omg... they look guilty, and sorry to have caused you any stress at all. "We were just playing momma!" Maybe they sensed you were using up all your stores of discipline in solid dyes and wanted to remind you to play more! LeeAnna

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  2. Believe me, that is not a look of guilt. They were still playing. I could only laugh. What would we do without our pets? Now that that part of the homework is done, I do get to play. :)

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  3. It seems to be a week for rainbows, and your looks beautiful. And that little blue piece is _exactly_ the kind of fabric I love!

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    1. I love the blue one, too. Not sure where it will end up yet.

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  4. My "boys" love Ro lay all over my fabric and on top of my sewing machine! But like you I love them being there!

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    1. Yes, when they lay on the fabric, they leave cat hairs. So I move my fabric to places that can't get to and put cushions in places for them to keep them happy. I also can't keep the machine threaded or Opus will pull the thread out and try to swallow it. I found that out early on with an emergency vet visit. Yikes!

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