Fabric on my Etsy store

I have some fabric motifs listed in my Etsy shop - check them out by clicking on "My Etsy Shop" on the top right of the blog page.

They're screenprints of some of my drawings, made with fabric ink and heat fixed so they're safe to wash. Use 'em in quilts, to make totes, or clothes, or whatever takes your fancy!

I've kept some for myself to make a skirt with, if I ever get the time. Maybe after classes finish in November...

Amazing!

Drawing 275

Drawing 276

Drawing 277

I'm still amazed that I've continued the commitment to drawing-a-day: I might not post to this blog every day, but I do find the time and energy (with the exception of a couple of weeks in February when I was sick enough to wind up in hospital) to make a drawing each and every day.
Some days I've been tempted to let it slide - tired, not in the mood, busy, other commitments, you know the litany - and make two the following day, but I've resisted the temptation. I'm afraid that if I do that, I'll break the habit. And it would be oh-so-easy to let it slide for days on end and I KNOW that I will never have the willpower to catch up if that happens! It's been a more than worthwhile exercise, in many ways: my drawing has improved with the daily practice, I'm on the alert for ideas and inspiration from a multitude of sources I probably wouldn't have noticed before, the daily drawings have provided inspiration for much of my work this year, and I have enough ideas even thus far to keep me busy for YEARS. Yep, years!

I suspect that my subconcious is a way more fetid and fertile swamp than I ever realised :)

Catching up (yet again!)

Drawing 271

Drawing 272

Drawing 273

Drawing 274

Blogging sporadic

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Drawing 268

Drawing 269

Drawing 270

Blogging will continue sporadically - I'm in the midst of Graduate Painting Exhibition mayhem. The class spent the last two days hanging our graduate show - painting is a bit of a misnomer, the subject is called Painting but we've been doing everything from painting to photography to mixed media to sculpture. It's exhausting, particularly since this is a very large group of 18 artists and there are a few tense moments with so many artistic egos! We all want it to be
perfect, of course, but compromise is the name of the game...

Like a lizard drinking

Drawing 264

Drawing 265

Drawing 266

Flat out

Drawing 261

Drawing 262

Drawing 263

Busy as one of the poor ex-bees

Drawing 258

Drawing 259

Drawing 260

Surface design

I have been making some surfaces to print on this coming term (eek, my last in this course! Quick, change the subject). I chopped up some prints I'd made, mostly on found paper, and sewed them back together using a faggotting stitch on the machine. I like! I suspect this is my long history in quiltmaking putting in an appearance - I didn't think it was going to crossover into my other art, but here it is at last. The one above was made with scraps from the making the ninepatch (not sure why blogger is putting that photo first, but I'm too braindead to wrestle with it). There are several of each version.

This one was also made with scraps from a previous print, that I chopped up to apply to papier mache bowls.
A ninepatch composed of pieces from three or four previous prints.

And a surface of long skinny pieces, also leftovers from the ninepatch. I hate to waste even the scraps, so nothing new there because I'm the same with fabric - if I hadn't done something with the paper scraps, they were threatening to need their own receptacle as I clean out the studio (a work in progress that seems like it may never end). Now they are neatly stowed in my printmaking folio, ready to go off to school and be printed over with another image or two (one more thing out of the house, one more plus on the decluttering side. It's a losing battle - last week I found a perfectly good child's wooden wagon on the side of the road for collection with the rubbish and brought it home. I think it's destined to become part of a sculpture).

To bee, or not to bee

Drawing 254

Drawing 255

Drawing 256

Drawing 257

This morning both my cats were conspicuous by their absence. Anyone familiar with cats will know that a conspicuous absence generally bodes ill. After a short search, I discovered both felines in the bedroom, staring fixedly at the north wall. More specifically, staring at the air vent on the north wall.

Hmmm, thinks I, I hear...buzzing. Droning. LOUD. And the ping of little winged bodies against the plaster. Uh-oh. This is probably not good.

An investigation outside revealed a horde of busy little bees industriously invading the air vents on the exterior wall. The Bloke had, earlier in the morning, reported half a dozen bees investigating the compost bin, which, though unusual, hadn't more than raised my eyebrow. Now all was revealed: the little buggers were staging an invasion and setting up house in the wall cavity.

A quick phonecall to my landlord set the pest exterminators onto the job. Since there was no way of accessing the forming hive to remove it (short of knocking down the wall to my house), to my regret the only thing to do was puff in pyrethrum (sp?) dust to exterminate them. The buzzing has now ceased.

Poor little bees, just when they thought they'd found a nice new home :(

The exterminator guy told me he is severely allergic to bees and wasps. Helluva occupational hazard!

Oh, and their job of alerting me to the invasion accomplished, the cats promptly gave up staring at the wall and went back to their real job of snoozing in the sun.