A Deeper Sense - Doing the Work

For a few weeks, I've been getting the parts of my mixed media interpretation of the Smitty Creek watershed project together. The botanical contact printed silk panels have been hanging on my design wall, as I added bits of blue fabric to signify the important of the water component in this ecosystem.

The next component was the textured background on which I wanted to print my photographs and other images. I used a non-woven synthetic fabric stabilizer (also know as interfacing), on which I spread fiber paste, an acrylic product that contains small fibers that create a stable texture when dry. I have to be careful to lay on a thin layer so the resulting material will be accepted by my inkjet printer. (Sometimes I use molding paste instead of fiber paste.) When the paste was completely dry, I sanded it thoroughly to remove any small peaks and extra rough areas.

The next step was the application of thin washes of acrylic paint to the stabilizer. For this piece, I used both medium brown and blue-grey paints. I accidentally applied more paint than was compatible with my need to have my photos show up fairly well, so I rinsed parts of it under running water in my big studio sink before the paint dried.

More to come - LOTS more!

Transformation Underway

The image above shows the textured stabilizer I made with my edited stream photo printed on top. I make this printing substrate by coating medium to heavy weight stabilizer (a.k.a. interfacing) with either acrylic molding paste (like art-grade spackling compound) or - in this case - fiber paste. I spread on a thin layer with an old credit card. When it dried, I lightly sanded it then painted on thin layers of acrylic paint thinned with matte medium. I mixed some pearl medium into the paints this time for some snowy luminescence.

After the paint dried thoroughly, I ran the stabilizer through my fancy inkjet printer to print my photo, now transformed with contrast, saturation, and hue enhancements with Paint.net - my favorite image editing software (easy, free, on-line, although I send a donation about once year, since I love it!). The image was then trimmed and deconstructed. Ready for for layering and stitching.

Any questions so far? Guess what happens next!

Fresh Snow and Introspection

Fresh Snow II

We had our first real snow last week. It transformed everything into a pristine, soft, bright fantasy - as if we hadn't seen this world at all before. The rain and warm breeze over the weekend erased all of it, but now it feels like winter and the snow will return.

I love the promise of quiet and introspection that comes with this season. It's a time to take in all that happened in the past year and process it, keeping what is constantly nourishing and learning from the rest.

The piece above, Fresh Snow II, is part of a diptych I made after a ski into Grass Pond last winter. I was experimenting with textured stabilizer as a substrate for printing digital photos, as I did in April. I am still learning how to prepare the substrate for printing, but I love the effect so much that it is a very satisfying process.

One of the best experiences of the past year was the coming together of a small group of spectacular women to paddle every Monday evening. We began in August and continued into late October, when the lakes and streams began to return to their solid forms. As the days got shorter, we paddled by headlamp and made campfires at our destination each time to warm our hands and to heat whatever food we brought to share. The experience of being with these adventurous friends in beautiful wild places was expanding and miraculous for each of us. Our thankfulness for each other and for the amazing place in which we live became our name: Gratitude Girls.

I started a Gratitude Series of collages, using some of photographs I took of our adventures. They are hanging now in the holiday show at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts. Here are a few. Make some Adventures of your very own!