Book of Forests #1

Book of Forest #1 both sides of an accordion book.  

The pages are approximately 10" x 10"

Images for this book were taken on a day in

February spent in the Petrified Forest National 

Park in Northern Arizona.  Incredible trees

around 220 million years old-amazing:)

Details of the book follow:

The base for this first detail is a piece of crocheted hemp.  Topping that is a piece of printed tyvec that has been heated to distort the surface.  The tyvec is attached to the base with waxed linen that is also crocheted. 

This next detail is composed of layers of  digital prints on 6 surfaces including handmade paper, canvas, lace paper, metallic crinkle paper, aluminum screen and recycled beverage can pieces attached together with copper wire.

Here is a gel medium transfer on watercolor paper.  The top surface is a combination of dyed burlap with crocheted hemp.  Then printed tyvec has been cut into smaller squares and attached to a natural color of hemp.

These next 2 details are where this book started.  You can see in the bottom of these 2 details is a skin layer as the base.  The skin has been stacked with digitally printed layers of watercolor paper, a skin, metallic crinkle paper, lace paper and pieces of a printed beverage can.  

Other details from my first Book of  Forests.  The top piece is a detail of one of the pages from the book.  The other is the piece of tyvec that is printed and heated.  This piece has been cut up and layered with other digital prints on aluminum screen, heat distressed lutradur and canvas. 

Fiber Digital Journals 101

My upcoming internet workshop

Fiber Digital Journals 101:
Using digital media to create engaging mixed media journals

will start on April 7th and run for 3 weeks.

Class Description
Focusing on digital media we will learn techniques to create mixed media art journals. In this workshop we will design and construct our own original art journal from cover to cover. Exploring numerable possibilities for using digital prints, patterns and textures in journals, participants will experiment with their images to create surfaces that can be printed on ink jet printers.

At the conclusion of this workshop you will have your own signature journal developed from the multitude of innovative ideas demonstrated.

Week one:
Dye or paint the base pages
Work with digital grounds to coat surfaces for printing
Create transparent and/or textural skins

Week two:
Learn the process of digital printing on fabric
Manipulate images for printing

Week three:
Design the pages in the journal
Create your cover
Put it all together

To register and receive your supply list go to kathyanneart-tutorials
The image depicts some examples of pages from these type of journals. Join this workshop and create a journal or art journal uniquely your own.

FiberARTS April/May 2009 Issue

The new issue of FiberARTS has a blurb in News and Notes, about my Artist Project Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts. I always appreciate magazines including information on my work and FiberARTS is such a great magazine. A picture of Forest Surfaces 12 was included.

FiberARTS recently published an article on Maggie Pavlou, an artist from Los Alamos, New Mexico. Maggie creates clothing from compressed merino wool. After reading the article and ordering some sample squares of the wool I have been experimenting with printing the wool surfaces. That project is ongoing and I have been having success in printing. Now I want to get into some larger pieces to perfect the process. You can purchase this product and others from Outback Fibers.

More youtube videos

Yesterday I posted 2 more videos to youtube.  These videos are a continuation of the series "Expanding the Digital Print to Uncommon Surfaces" .  The first 3 were about coating, printing carrier sheets and then the results.  These last 2 are about the process that takes me from planning to assembling once the prints are finished.  Check it out and  view these videos  Part 4 and Part 5.

The piece that was shown in the 5th part video, changed early this morning.  One of those instant inspirations had me back in my studio to add to the piece.  It ended up having a layer underneath that is a digital print on copper screen with a border of digitally printed hand made paper.  The picture at the top of the post shows the final composition of the video piece.

The other pictures here are a some of the other pages in the start of Book of Forests 1.  This is the first piece of the series with several more to come.  As the piece continues,  it will lead me as far as the layout of the book.  The pages will be 10" x 10" on this one, but who knows what will happen from here.  

Some of the materials used above:

Digital prints on watercolor paper, tyvec, lace paper, metallic crinkle paper, copper mesh, hand made skins, beverage cans and hand made paper

Jute twine, hemp cord, crocheted light weight hemp, copper wire, hardware cloth and waxed linen

Digital Prints on Beverage Cans

Last week I posted a video about digital printing beverage cans on youtube. Here are some of the cans I printed.






The process is fairly simple and gives me an interesting metal surface to combine with my mixed media artwork.

The artwork on the top in this post uses a skin surface made from gel medium and dyed cheesecloth as the base. The skin was sewn to a piece of organdy that has been digitally printed. The layers on the surface of the piece are composed of digital prints on metalic crinkle paper, lace paper and a skin with dyed cheesecloth. There are also pieces of printed beverage cans throughout. The layers were connected with waxed linen that anchors the layers to the skin and organdy base. This will be one of the pages in a open book composition.

KathyAnneArt Etsy Store

I've been working on my Esty Shop - KathyAnneArt. The shop opened in November, with only one art journal. In the last couple of days I uploaded around 23 items. The Amate Bark Book from my February 15th  post is there. As well as some of my Forest Surfaces pieces. Take a look to seewhat's there. When you are there, make me one of your favorite places to visit on Etsy.