Forest Surfaces 2 Beginning

Spent pretty much all day working on this textural book yesterday. The cover is in the beading stage and will be finished in the next couple of hours. This book contains digital prints on most of the surfaces, beading, textiles, lutradur, dyed watercolor paper, dyed burlap and canvas, lace papers, hemp among others. This and the new wall pieces I am working on clearly explore the surfaces of the forests I have visited.

Depicted here are all the pages stacked together and a couple of details of open pages and single pages. Depending on how today goes, I will photograph the finished piece in the next day or 2.

Creating Surfaces

Well the month of January is almost over and this is my first post this year. Mostly my mind has been on creating and working on textural surfaces. I am currently working on a small book which will be small compositions created with my digital designs using textures. Tomorrow I will start to picture pieces of the book. Today, I am posting one of my wall pieces that is done with hemp, canvas, dyes, digital prints on twill, canvas, lutradur and silk to name a few. Mostly playing with an overall surface that is multi textural.

Workshop

Above you will see, prints on lace paper, metalic crinkle paper, rice paper, transfer paper on cheesecloth and carrier sheets that enable me to print some of these specialty papers.

This summer I will be teaching at SURFACE:LAYERED which will take place in Flagstaff Arizona July 28th - August 1st, 2008 at Coconino Community College. Pictured here are examples of surfaces that will be explored in "Creating Designs on Textiles and specialty paper from digital prints" -my 3 day workshop. The class description follows.

Creating Designs on Textiles and specialty paper from digital
prints
3 day class.
Instructor: Kathyanne White

We will cover everything you need to know about bringing digital images to fabric using an inkjet printer.
Ideas and discussions in this workshop will include images
including design, content, composition, personal style, color,
suitability, surface selection, surface preparation, getting a quality print and many others. Participants will print images and do small studies and projects.
Creating Designs on Textiles is not a beginning workshop. Some
knowledge of photo program software is necessary. Knowledge ofPhotoshop Elements or Photoshop.

Desktop computers provided, or bring your own laptop.


Check out all the workshops that will be offered from July 28th - August 1, 2008 at Coconino Community College in Flagstaff. Register early!

Visit http://www.melanietesta.com/SL.htm

My Journal

This is a small piece of a couple pages in my own loose leaf journal and the cover. I have collaged many of the pages before writing, or while writing.

The loose leaf journal, above, is one of my favorites. I keep about 5 journals going at the same time. The first, my studio journal is about my processes and what is going on in my studio and art life. In this journal I put pictures of all that I create. I call this type of journal a garbage journal since I make the pages from all sorts of random paper or samples in my studio.

Second I have a lined composition book type journal. In this I write all my ideas, work through first drafts of articles, personal writing etc. No one ever sees this journal but me.

Then I have my loose leaf journal (picture above) that I take on travels and around. I don't have to worry about order of anything because I keep switching papers around and pick the sheet with the color or collage that I want to write on at that tine.

Also there is a larger journal that has large pages around 10" x 9". This journal takes a long time to get to the writing stage and since this one is new, I have been working on collage for a couple of months, there isn't much writing in it yet. The tone of the journal is still taking shape and I am totally having fun with the artwork.

An affirmation journal is kept in one of the small 3" x 4" signature journals that I make. In that I write dream goals and affirmation, it is small so I can easily carry it and read it.

So don't think I am driven enough to write in each everyday, but they all have their purpose and time and place.

Journals

This week I changed directions somewhat.
I will be a vendor in January at the Tucson Quilters Guild annual show, Tucson’s Quilt Fiesta – January 11, 12 and 13th at the Tucson Convention Center. My booth will feature merchandise from my website www.kathyanneart.com. During the course of the weekend I will demo:

"Creating with digital prints and patterns"
Print on fabric to bring individual images to your work. This demo will show
how to print on fabric and specialty surfaces. See how to take a photograph to
fabric using and inkjet printer. Finished examples will illustrate techniques
in this media.

The demos will be on Fri and Sat from 1:45 to 2:30 and ongoing in my booth.

Since there are 3 days of crowds perusing the vendor area, I have tons of preparation in front of me. Currently I am working my way through printing 300 images on broadcloth. At the same time I am creating loose leaf journals with one of a kind canvas covers. Which brings me to the description of the pictures that are posted.

The top picture includes 7 of my loose leaf journals and one of the smaller signature journals. The second picture shows what a couple of them look like when they are open. The next shows one of the small signature journals along with the paper that is inside those journals. The last picture has a pile of the types of papers that are on the inside of all the journals.

The journal covers are composed of hand dyed canvas that has been pieced, fronts have beading and/or piecing. Raw edges show throughout. These are funky spontaneous covers that I create in the moment. Inside each loose leaf journal are 20 watercolor paper pages (5" x 7") that are hand dyed, giving 40 pages to create. In the small signature journals there are 4 sheets in each signature with 4 signatures in a journal, for a total of 64 sides of paper (3" x 4") to embellish.

The loose leaf journal covers are forgiving enough to add many more pages or embellishments or whatever is desired to include within the covers.

In the next post I will show you a small part of my own loose leaf journal.

Yosemite Falls

During my Thanksgiving trip and beyond, the days got away from me. I’ve been working and finishing a piece of Yosemite Falls that appears here. You can see the original print and then the finished piece with all the layers assembled on screen, plus a detail. This is what I guess could be called a tessalation piece. I think of it as a pattern of Yosemite Falls. The photograph is manipulated and then printed on several surfaces for assembling.

Layers of the print are:

1. Epson Water Resistant Artist Canvas
2. Tyvec
3. Organdy
4. Organdy
5. Lutradur heat distressed

followed by non printed layers of

6. painted or dyed cheesecloth
7. overdyed recycled art work ( these are pieces of my older work I cut up an dye), dyed burlap or canvas

Yosemite Falls is wondrous and one of the delights of Yosemite National Park that are dear to my heart. Next I will be working on a different type of digital presentation of Yosemite Falls from a large print on dyed canvas. Still working out the details, so it will be awhile. As I start the piece I will put some pictures up on the planning stage.

There are several other projects to finish before my next Yosemite Falls piece. Check later this week and I will tell you about what this month will be focused on as well as Christmas with my family here in Prescott.

Bark 10

Finished!

New Bark Piece, Bark 10

This is the beginning of Bark 10.

I manipulated a photograph of bark from Yosemite and then used that photograph for every layer.

Surfaces from top to bottom:

The top 2 layers are lutradur that has been printed and then heat distressed

Next is canvas that is printed and cut across the diagonal

Then a layer is composed of a surface I made by using gel media, cheesecloth and inkAID semi gloss pre coat. This surface is cut in 3 rectangular pieces

The last printed layer is arial (ariel?) paper

After that-dyed cheesecloth and on the bottom - rug hook canvas that has been spray dyed

In order to assemble the cut pieces in several of the layers, I used gel media as I stacked the layers together.

Most of the time I use regular metal screen to assemble and sew the layers to a backing, but this piece just didn't seem right on that backing. I found some copper screen on the internet and bought some that is heavier then the regular scree I was using. I loved the screen, it is just beautiful behind the squares, so I chose to use copper wire to put this all together. I had to put 2 holes through each stack of layers in order to use the copper wire.

The finished results follow in the next post.

More Yosemite Falls Journal

Last month I posted a bit of my Yosemite Falls Journal. This mixed media journal is inspired by Yosemite Falls in Yosemite National Park. If you have never visited this incredible park, it should go on your "places to visit" list.

Words cannot describe the awesome landscape of Yosemite, or what it feels like to be in the presence of these natural monuments.

All of the pages have small compositions of Yosemite Falls that I digitally manipulated on my computer in Photoshop. For the top pages here, I printed these small compositions on water color paper. Once printed the images were torn and then pressed to the board book with gel media and pieces of painted cheesecloth to finish the page.

The second set of pages is a mirror print of Yosemite Falls when it was snowing and overcast. This was printed on cream mica crinkle from Creative Papers On-line. I love printing this surface, the mica makes it sparkle within the print.

The third set of pages has 2 small compositions. The left is a digital print that is torn and stacked like a paper quilt. The print is sewn in a tie through manner and then the assemblage is attached to the board with gel media. The opposite page has a print underneath and the top is a piece of rug hook canvas that was dyed. There are pieces of tree branches that have beads and wires attached on the top of the canvas.

As for the last pages- this is composed of a print of the water coming off the bottom of the falls. There is a nice little spot on rocks where the water sprays and you can take clear pictures. The print is on tyvec that is heated so that it curls and puffs up. These little pieces are connected with pearl cotton and then assembled and attached to the board with gel media. The freedom of the way the compositional elements resembles the water flow.

I will be teaching a digital printing class in Flagstaff Arizona at the end of July 2008. We will be experimenting with various techniques of creating and printing digital images.

Bark Series Continued

Bark 9 has just been completed. This is a continuation of my Bark series that is part of Sensual Surfaces. This body of work is about the Forests of Yosemite National Park, Kings Canyon National Park and the Waipoui Forest on the Northern Island of New Zealand. These forests are incredible and have inspired this exciting mixed media work.

Bark 9 is made up of small sections that include 8 layers per section. After taking a photograph of bark in Yosemite National Park, I manipulated the image in Photoshop. Once the image is ready and sized for the output, the surfaces are printed.

Surfaces from top to bottom are:

Cream Mica Crinkle
Lutradur, heat distressed
Silver Metalic Crinkle paper
Gel media/cheesecloth/semi-gloss precoat combined to make a printable surface
Arial Paper
Canvas
Lutradur, heat distressed
Dyed cheesecloth
Dyed rug hook canvas

I will be teaching a workshop of the techniques included in this piece. All the details have not been released, but you could contact me and I will advise you when all the arrangements of place and time have been completed.