bee creative

color transformations

A picture of the lily with the pollen removed, the ink made with the pollen layered underneath digitally. 

Goldenrod dye samples.

Silk, without a mordant, and two pieces of cotton, one soaked in aluminum triformate.

Using a mordant definitely makes a difference.

The rest of the goldenrod dye bath will be made into a lake pigment.

And then comparing the marigold and the goldenrod.  I used the same mordant for the marigold fabric. 

I was gathering up a few things and had the jar of rose petal ink in my hand, looked over at the paper and thought why not...pouring color over the paper is definitely the way to go.

This makes me think of stormy skies.

 

it's the little things

Pounding flowers onto my handmade paper. 

Something fossil like about it.

It was about a 10 minute experiment.

clouds, moons, dots...

I decided I wasn't going to dip these again.  This is the fabric with the clay rinsed out.

I love how the weave of the hemp shows up.

 

There were a few more sheets of paper this morning.

I read that it's better for beginner paper makers to start with more pulp in the water.  It made sense when the pulp was almost gone. 

Still, I was able to make some fairly thin paper.

For some reason there were bubbles.

I would love to know why.

And then I did what I wanted to do... which was paint the paper with ink.

It was wet enough that the paper became soft again but it wasn't a problem.  It actually became a creative possibility and I started to tear and rearrange the paper. 

The "clouds" were made by accident yesterday when I was transferring the paper off the screen and it ripped.  Now I want to make them on purpose.

I really love clouds.

playing a little

Happy Solstice!

a project for past, present and future

I've been cleaning out an old photograph album with the sticky pages that were covered with plastic.

Thinking about how once they were considered something amazing, no more photo corners!

On the back of this photo my mother has written, "July 11-1974 at 10:00 P.M."  The P.M. is underlined...probably because it was still light out.  This picture was taken in South Eastern Alaska. 

The sticky in the album is, for the most part, long gone and the pages may be fun for a collage base. For today, I made a copy of one of the pages and then folded an origami butterfly. 

Copy paper works well for origami.

#92 flying is an option...

It's a rock now (although maybe in disguise):

Today's mark making also included painting one of the origami butterflies I've learned to make.

I found the directions as a suggested post on Instagram.  Maybe a little tricky unless you already know some origami as the directions go fairly fast.

Today's adventures also included chasing the neighbor's chicken.

It took three of us to round her up.

The cats were fascinated.

She can fly!

#44 holding things we love

Today I painted a boat.

Sorry Gibson, you won't fit.

And I stitched a heart.

and some other things

It's going to get cold again (snow probably) so blanket mending seemed like a good idea...my assistants were up for the job.

I have two wool blankets that Mom gave me that had moth holes.

  She thought I could do something with them.

I washed them and put them on my bed. :)

They got washed a lot when I had dogs so they are pretty much felted at this point and one has some pretty big tears.  The torn one was cut into strips for mending holes in the other and to extend the length of the blanket that is still in pretty good shape.

I have plans to do more with this blanket but this will do for now. 

The other project I am getting some assistance with is knitting the sleeve on a sweater. 

They did let me make this star without help (directions here).

It's a little fussier than the last star I shared earlier and is going to take a bit of practice. 

And there was one more batch of ink:

 

Made without assistance on the porch.

A real to-do for tomorrow:  clean up the studio (porch) before everything freezes...

a few firsts

Not a lake (I am not quite there yet), but pigment. 

First orange of the year. 

I will probably dry the peel for cooking. 

Something new to fold.

Directions here.

I practiced with magazine pages but I am imagining these with all sorts of paper.

in a way these are all field notes

Yesterday's lunch break...cloud watching.

It feels like fall. 

It feels good, cooler. Just a little rain this morning.

The yellow shirt went into the walnut vat.  Yellow from the home garden, walnuts from the work garden.

A more wearable color. 

I am stitching up the sides now and considering a touch of the yellow somewhere.

Two new books:  Lab Girl by Hope Jahren and Wild Textiles by Alice Fox.

(How many books can I read at one time?)

Feedback Friday's presentation today was by Alice Fox.  For the first time I decided to watch it in "real time."  It was a great presentation and I have plans!  Tomorrow I am going to gather bindweed to save for a basket.  For today, I twined a flyer that was in the mail into paper yarn. Twined paper makes a great cat toy.

And then there was this, late afternoon...

There isn't supposed to be rain for the next 10 days.  The crocus will be beautiful as long as there isn't a downpour. I need to water.

Sunrise: 6:49 AM  Sunset: 7:20