Friday Friday

I found the other day when I was done trapsing around in the woods that I had picked up a few stragglers. I know you can't really see it but on this little guy the ends of his stickies are little tiny hooks. I read somewhere once that this is how the invention of velcro came from. A man noticed that the little hooks were keeping it attached to the loops in fabric. Hence .. the man stole the idea from nature. Pretty neat I think.

This week I have been getting over a cold so I haven't been posting as much.
But I have so many images I think I will just post a little each day.



Here is an experiment that I started to show in an earlier post. I try to show the progression here. Ok first on the left is an old shirt that I was going to take to the thrift store and decided I would see what I could do with this. I cut off a sleeve and then put it around a frame of wood and tied it up with string and then painted it with brown house paint. That is seen in the middle image and then to the right is the result of this after I took the sleeve off and cut the seam i like the bumpy texture of it. Below these three images are some designs that I added to the fabric with some Liquid Beads for gold leafing. I enjoy the added feature of the gold and am still not finished with this piece. I am going to add some embellishments .. maybe some old jewelry finds. Not sure yet. The two that I posted here are both the same, except one is taken inside with a flash and the other is taken outside in natural light.

 I thought I would add these little lovelies that I find outside when I am just walking around enjoying nature. The one on the left is a berry that I found in the woods. I did finally discover what it was after searching the internet. It is Hearts-a-bustin' . Strawberry Bush, Wahoo, or for the highly educated Euonymus americanus.  I thought that was pretty interesting. A mushroom in the middle and some lichen growing on a oak tree limb that fell off of my tree after a storm. Below is the inside of what is left of a seed pod. I love these things. They are natural looking pokers. I have found them in groups on a branch and they have a very fierce look to them. 

More walnut paintings below. I've enjoyed doing these alot and the second one below is a root system that is in town by a river. It's very popular to paint or draw because of all the detail that is in it exposed for all to see. This is my take on it. As always I enjoy hearing your comments on my work. Thanks for stopping by. :)

Monday Moody Madness

A fabric sunset of color and stripes. I love creating this kind of imagery.

Today it's raining and while I am very excited that the rain is adding to the earth to elicit growth I am stuck inside. My wrapped experiment will finally show some changes due to this volume of rain and I have another kind of wrapped experiment going on outside. I'm thinking I'll go out and unwrap it while there is still the expectation of more rain and let it work it's magic on the cloth.

Perhaps I'll use this time constructively. We'll see.
More wrapping experiments.  I'll show that evolution. here. Below is an old sheet faded yellow that I was discarding for whatever reason. I decided it would be a good candidate for something else. So I wrapped it around a part enamel part iron grate that was on an old oil heater. It's heavy and a good solid piece for wrapping. Then I stained it with some walnut stain and wrapped it in some laminate film and left it for a day. Perhaps I should try these and wrap and leave for a days or weeks. I might have much more dramatic results and it will be a lesson in patience.

I always love the discovery of what naturally occurs .. I love the discovery of what design is sort of haphazardly created and so the unwrapping is always something I look forward too. The photo of this cloth looks so much MORE interesting in person then how it appears in the photos. I'm still deciding how to proceed with this cloth now that I have it dried. No matter what .. I'm still grateful to have a visible record of my efforts. Over time perhaps there will be an evolution to the work.