Creativebug Daily Practice: Shape, Pattern, Color: Hand-Stitched Sampler Books

 I have a new series of workshops on Creativebug!

The series is called:

Shape, Pattern, Color: Hand-Stitched Sampler Books

It is a "daily practice" series wherein one mini-workshop is released everyday in November - starting November 1st, 2024. After the workshop is released it will remain available - so, if you are a Creativebug subscriber, you will have access to the class anytime thereafter.

In this daily practice I will walk you through many textile surface design techniques including fabric painting, stencil cutting and printing, embroidery stitches, mending techniques, natural dyeing, working with earth pigments, and the list goes on...for 30 days! At the end I will guide you through gathering your decorated pages and making them into books: pamphlet, slot book, accordion, and Japanese side sewn.

There is A LOT of information in these 30 days!

At the end you will have beautiful hand-made sampler books that reflect your own hand and style, and that can serve as references for your future projects.

I hope that you will join along on Creativebug. 

Sign up now so you will be ready to go on November 1st!

Here is a link to my other workshops on Creativebug.

Fall 2019 : Exhibits and a Residency

It has been a while since my last post. Summer 2019 was busy with teaching and teaching related travel. I didn't seem to find time to write blog posts but I did post on Instagram and you can catch up there if you feel so inclined!

This Fall brings some fun exhibits and an artist residency.

Hemingway and the Art of Awareness, No. 6

Coming up in October at the de Saisset Museum at Santa Clara University is a compelling book arts exhibit including my work:

Unbound: The Art of Deterioration

de Saisset Museum

Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA

October 4th - December 6th, 2019

Opening Reception: Thursday, October 3rd

Member's Preview: 6:00 - 7:00

Public Opening Reception: 7:00 - 8:30

There will be a number of my Bibliomuse series pieces in that exhibit.

Hemingway and the Art of Awareness, No. 1-6

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This summer I began an Artist's Residency at the Santa Cruz Resource Recovery Facility, a.k.a. the Dump! The program is called the Santa Cruz Recycled Art Program (SCRAP) and is loosely modeled on the 25 year plus Recology Program in San Francisco. 

Me pondering the wood pile. Photo by fellow resident Janet Fine

Artists in the SCRAP program are given access to most of the items brought to the Santa Cruz Dimeo Lane facility. There are wood and metal piles, plastic and cardboard bins, electronics, paper, dirt piles, etc., and a tipping station where Santa Cruz residents bring just about anything you can think of that they need to get rid of - this is where we find the really interesting stuff.

While we are allowed to glean most anything as art supplies from the dump we are expected to use our own studio spaces to create.

We gained access to the facility in late July 2019 and the residency will culminate in a exhibit at the R. Blitzer Gallery in Santa Cruz in December 2019:

Santa Cruz Recycled Art Program (SCRAP)

R. Blitzer Gallery

Santa Cruz, CA

December 6th - 28th

Opening Reception: First Friday, December 6th

5:00 - 9:00

The dominant material that has attracted me at the dump is tar paper which is what you are seeing in these photos. Circles, numbers, dirt, and misc. objects have also been following me back to my studio. I've been making books, boxes and wall pieces with the tar paper and stenciling with found objects and painting with dirt. I don't want to give too much away so I will let these images speak from themselves for now, and hope that you'll come to the exhibit to see my installation in December. 

I have also have been posting images on Instagram and will continue to do so as I reveal more about the project leading up to the exhibit.

 

 

Residency in My Backyard and Blog update

I moved out of my old studio at the end of June, and once I was settled in my new home studio I decided to give myself a "Residency in My Backyard" this August. 

 

Residency in my Backyard - my new studio

 

It was lovely with lots of time to: 

play in the studio, 

Bookskin palette for a new piece

Strap woven cotton from West Africa - base for a new piece

create,

 

made some new stencils based on imagery from a withdraw library book

And, I combined all those elements to start a new piece which is part of my Bibliomuse Series

work on my long neglected yard and pet my cat on my way from my house to my studio, 

 

Miss Emeline McQueen on my drought lawn

and attend as many performances of the Cabrillo Music Festival as I could. 

 

Music in the Mountains Venue - Cabrillo Music Festival

It was very restorative.

 

 

But, now schools are starting up again and Fall is in the air which is a perfect time to get back to business and update my Blog Pages. "Pages" are the tabs at the top of the blog, just under the banner image. 

I decided to add one for "Exhibits" and one for "Press and Publications", as well as be more vigilant about posting upcoming workshops on that existing page. So, be sure to visit them all and see what's new and upcoming.

Shakerag Hollow Book will be in an exhibit at San Francisco Center for the Book this Fall and I will be teaching an accompanying Boro Sampler Book Workshop there.

 

I put a link to a couple of Blurb books that I have published about my Preparing for Evanescence Exhibit and my KEEP: Modern Library Exhibit on the "Press and Publications" page as well as links to my KEEP artist's book and some blog interviews and local press. 

Blurb Books for two of my past exhibits

I will continue to dedicate blog posts to select upcoming workshops or exhibits but now I have a place for that information to live that can be updated frequently.

Good luck to all with new school year activities whether that is as a student, parent or teacher, and I hope to see you in a workshop or at an exhibit this Fall.

Pochoir Sampler Book with Macy Chadwick

Macy Chadwick, of In Cahoots Press, returned to Wishi Washi Studio this past Saturday to teach the Pochoir Sampler Book Workshop.

Pochoir is a hand stenciling technique used to create prints, or to add color to existing prints. Read more about Pochoir here.

Macy Chadwick - Topography of Home

Above and below are cutouts with pochoir inserts from pages of Macy's stunning artist's book entitled: Topography of Home.

Macy Chadwick - Topography of Home

Pochoir allows for a delicate control of color - at once subtle and vibrant. It is a great way to get color and repeated imagery into your book projects but also has applications for printmaking and for textile pieces.

When guest instructors teach in my studio I am hostess, assistant, and student all in one. It is a great mix and I always love to play along with the other students. I came totally unprepared, though, with no images in mind to work with so I pulled out some photocopies of the Vessel People I was drawing and printing a couple of years ago.

My Vessel People proved to be perfect for a beginning Pochoir student as they were very simple shapes and easy to make into hand-cut stencils.

We cut stencils in a few different ways using different materials

We created imagery on diaphanous book pages using our pochoir techniques

and, then we bound them into an accordion book structures with pockets to hold our stencils. How brilliant is that?

Completed Pochoir Sampler Book by Janis O'Driscoll

Layering the stencils creates a nice effect as does layering the pages

My four sections shown layered before I bound them into the sampler book

Macy is such a great teacher and I can't wait to have her come back and teach again.

Next up in Wishi Washi Studio is Crossed Structure Binding taught by me on November 14th, followed by Courtney Cerruti's Playing with Image Transfers - Accordion Style on November 21st. Each workshop has just one space available! Go here to register.

See you in the studio...