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Those Dead Dried Leaves Scarves

Posted on by Sandy Webster

Here the two of them are unwrapped, rinsed and laying out. There is considerably more orange than I thought would come through. Most of it is from the dried California leaves.

But some from the small little stem-clinging Eucalyptus from Trader Joe’s.

All of it looks a bit “messy” for my taste. Not many clear outlines of leaf patterns.

They sort of look like what they are….lots of leaves tossed on cloth with a hope for the best. Actually “the best” takes more work than what I put into these. I don’t really like orange that much so my favorite parts are the ends with string resist marks where iron crept into the cloth.

Dry now they are a bit better.

The details are the best views. I will press them and then put them away for gifts or something. The ones I did last March in Australia at the Botanical Studio were so much better. The Eucalyptus leaves there are simply stunning on how they transfer to cloth. If I can possibly work in a day there dyeing or just work on them while in country next March I will, but time is tight to say the least!

Today I returned from Asheville and bought enough felt to make many, many trump pincushions. My friend Marla has downsized the pattern for “pocket pincushions” and we are thinking that since we are being asked, we might just do them up in trade for donations to Planned Parenthood. We will discuss it over Christmas when she comes here. I will try to have everything cut out and ready for the machine. There is such pleasure sticking pins into its body.

And I arrived home to a phone call asking me to do a show in Chattanooga next April. So just ordered more frames for the etchings and botanical prints works about messages and travel.

That’s it. I just promised images of the dead leaves on cloth and here it is.

All Over The Place

Posted on by Sandy Webster

It is a rather dull fall season here. Not much color. And today it is raining. I feel scattered. Unable to settle. I took all the dead and dried up Eucalyptus leaves placed them along some lovely wool scarves to see if any color would come from it. I might have just turned the whole bunch into a dark and dismal brownish grey with no leaf definition.

Nobody ever shows putting dead dried up leaves on their contact prints.  Maybe I should go out there and see what it looks like. Yep I will do that now.

Well that was better than I expected! I rolled it up quickly so as not to disturb the leaves doing their best and stuck it back in the pot. I will wait until I return from Asheville on Wednesday and then undo the two scarves. I might even bring home some more Eucalyptus from Trader Joes. I think the orange-ish ones are from a dried up bunch left from a box shipped from California a couple of months ago. So that is good news…not ruining two of the perfectly good wool scarves I ordered from a textile artist in Ohio.

But doesn’t it seem that everybody is doing contact prints with plants? And the funny thing is that no two look the same. It is impossible to duplicate. So when you have some leaves, some paper and/or cloth, you just have to try it again. So simple. So thank you again, India Flint!

I also went back to my Specimen Journal to do some more of the discoverer’s drawings.

He must be documenting a hatch on this page.

And then looking closer to the surface on the water there appears to be gelatinous masses with small eggs. This will be the beginnings of the large brown water bug, I think.

Sadie likes this page.

The other day I went outside the studio to look for something inspiring to catch my eye and noticed that this is coming up the second year of the fish outside the studio. Just a bit more rust on the wires, the rocks holding them from swimming too far are all in place and I still like them. Hard to believe that I drank the dreadful wine that was in them.

I really need to find something else to do in the studio. Sometimes I wish I could be like so many others and just crank out the same thing over and over for forty years. Settle on one thing like baskets, pretty watercolors of flowers, blank journals, even Nature contact prints….and then do it over and over and teach everyone else to do it over and over. But I can’t do it. I make no new discoveries about myself and what I am and am not capable of if I go down that road.  I am bored by it, that constant repeating.

I think that after last week with the completion of the Australian piece, I need to go back to the press. There are more images in my head that might just work out as etchings.

And there is writing to do. On rainy days like today it is hard to not just pick up a very wet ball point pen and a pad of yellow dog paper. They feel so much more natural than a keyboard.

Anyway, enough. I am headed upstairs to fix lunch and think about meals made in crock pots like we did almost fifty years ago. I am seeing more and more recipes for crock pot cooking lately. And it is getting to be soup weather.

Tomorrow it is off to Asheville for an overnight. When home I will unwrap the scarves and show you how they came out.

Til then.

This Might be Finished

Posted on by Sandy Webster

 

I started adding tiny dots and tracking marks using just the watercolors made from the soils of Australia to the background.

Then I stained the entire thing with diluted walnut ink to bring the background into the warmth of the tracking paths of my own travels there.

It took a couple of days to make all the marks but no time at all to stain the surface with the ink. Then I wanted it to feel right, sound right. So I waxed it heavily with a paste wax and used heat to get it deep into the surface. I avoided waxing the cloth shadow etchings.

I used my colored shifu threads to stitch time marking marks onto the lower darker third.

And finally I added a backing of cotton that had been chemically rusted via Adele’s instructions. There was lots of ironing and waxing over every new addition to embed the marks even further into the paper “cloth”. The paper has a Drys A Bone feel to it…that clothing line of the Australian Outback with oiled surfaces.

 

I covered small stones with kozo paper that had been colored with Australian stones in case the piece needed weighting at the bottom to help it hang flat.

I did not like them that much. They distracted from the time marks.

When sewing the backing into place I added two small loops in each upper corner for hanging. I like how it looks, feels and sounds. It is very much about my experiences there and am thinking of a new title for it. The word, “Walkabout” is too spiritual and/or mired in Aboriginal history for me to be comfortable with. Anyway I think it might just be finished.

Lesson learned….just do it….don’t think too much…..just do it.

Til next week and whatever else I have moved on to.

A Good Week at Websters

Posted on by Sandy Webster

Friends I have known since 1988 arrived this week. Ed hiked the Appalachian Trail with a group each day and I collected Carlene to work with me in the studio. I wanted to get started on my piece about my travels in Australia and she needed to work on some assignments in embroidery studies.

First off I made the prints from the etched plates and only used fabrics colored in Australia. They are four different images of my shadow on the land there. Then I collected all the etchings that I had done there or at home using photos of gum trees as inspiration. Next came the pile of botanical prints made on paper while at Beautiful Silks last March and some of the handmade papers I made in Claudia Lee’s class last July. The palette was exactly what I was looking for.

Several pieces of Thai kozo had to be pieced together as I wanted the work to measure one square meter. Above is the first strip of pieces placed together. The botanical and dry point etchings had to be sanded down to make the papers more pliable. I added scraps of rusted papers done by a method I learned from Adele in Australia. It was like putting puzzle pieces together and Carlene had such a good eye for helping with the placements.

These are my “walkabout” tracks across the land into the country. The problem was that I needed to cover the pieced seams of the kozo paper and placement was not where I would have wanted it. So, logically I changed the size from one meter by one yard, using both measuring systems as it is about my being there and dragging my own sensibilities with me.

I pinned it to the wall on Wednesday just before a dinner party with several friends.

And here is the table with loads of BBQ ribs and veggies.

And Lynda’s kale salad that was the best!

The feed back was good from the textile women who were there as well as our artist neighbor who had been watching my progress with the piece I have decided to call, “Walkabout”.

Here are some details:

I intend to use the spun paper shifu threads that have been colored with the soils of Australia and some of the watercolors made from pigments gathered there to work in older tracks onto the background. Not sure about that yet as right now it is all about the stitching my own tracks into place. Keeping with the theme of being there I am punching the stitch holes five millimeters apart.

And of course the thread I am using was purchased in Hobart at Wafu Works. It is a lovely loosely plied cotton with a nice sheen that slides easily in and out of the holes.

So today I will punch and stitch the last of the six tracks in place and begin thinking about the tracks that came before me flowing over the ground below.

Til next week…..and I really hope it goes as well as this one, full of friends, food and fibers.