Still in the groove….

Whoa.  Here we are at Friday!  Yesterday was another fantastically productive day.  Now, a little insight as to how my (and I know many other artists’) brain works – I started to feel the “I’m out of ideas” feeling yesterday morning.  It’s weird – I have this abundance of supplies before me, yet my first thought is, “I can’t make anything with this.”  I think it’s because we get into this routine of what we’re SUPPOSED to create, and if we can’t see that idea in front of us, we default into surrender mode.

NOPE.  I wasn’t going to let that happen, not when I’m at this amazing place and I have the entire day stretched out ahead of me.  So I grabbed one of the paper pulp pieces I made on Monday and started applying some encaustic medium, and then a teensy bit of Shiva paint stick.

To me, it looks like waves crashing against rocks.  At least three people told me it looked like cake!  I’ll admit – I was a bit deflated after those remarks, because I didn’t convey what I wanted to.  But I still love it!  Onward!

After this project I still wanted to experiment with my encaustic supplies, but because of something I saw Ricki (the other artist-in-residence this week) doing, I wanted to try that – using my Lutradur as a stabilizer for my emboidery, especially on the very thin muslin that I used to rust-dye.  So I put some behind a square of that fabric and just started mimicking the markings in the fabric with some dark blue thread.  Afterward I just used encaustic medium over the top.  I was REALLY pleased with how this turned out!  😀

At this point I needed a break, so I went down the hall and visited Claire at Fox Valley Found + Collected, which is the super-cool shop attached to Standard Projects’ workshop.  It’s got SUCH a great vibe in there – it’s instantly calming.  She’s curated it so beautifully, with her own fantastic leather accessories and other makers’ work as well!  And she’s also got this amazing, tiny “gallerette” right in her shop called The Vault, because, well, it’s in an old vault.  😀  I LOVE it in there!  😀  She’s open Thursdays and Fridays from 1-6 and Saturdays from 10-3.

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So after my break, I tried yet another project that I’d actually been wanting to try for over a year but never did – a weaving on this tiny loom pendant!  The pendant itself is so adorable, isn’t it?  So I searched through my box of fibers that I’d brought with me and got going.

I LOVE how it turned out!  I think I’m going to add tassels on the bottom when I get back up to the studio this morning.  😀

Speaking of pendants – here are the other seven that I completed on Wednesday!  The one on the far right is already sold (YAY!) but the rest are now available at Found + Collected for $15.  🙂

I’m off to enjoy my final (WHAAA!) day of creating at Standard Projects, and I’m also REALLY looking forward to the Deconstructed Collage workshop tomorrow!!  I can’t wait!  😀

 

Getting Stuff Done!

I love those prolific work days, don’t you?  The kind where you set out to do certain tasks and it all gets done?  That was me yesterday.

I wanted to do more of those pulp pieces yesterday, and I did three of them.  They’re STILL drying!  It was so humid yesterday that they’re taking their sweet time.  I still have two full work days (YAY!) so I’m sure they’ll be set by later today.

I spent the majority of my day creating another of those Lutradur/machine embroidered pieces – this one I decided to do in earthy colors, and it’s quite a bit larger than the one I did on Tuesday.

This time, I also cut around the non-lacy part and used some ancient bulding materials (from a nearby building that had been renovated!) for the background.  I think it looks either like a piece of rusted metal, or some sort of embroidered petroglyph.  🙂  I went through four whole spools of thread for this piece!  That’s a lot of “scribbling”.

I also made eight new pendants!  Here’s one of them (I didn’t manage to get a shot of the rest before I left for the day).  I used my rust-dyed fabric and just followed the lines on them with my sewing machine.  These will be for sale at Found + Collected!  😀

After my coffee, I’ll be heading back up to the studio to make more stuff.  Who knows what’ll happen today?  I can’t wait to find out.  😀