May TIF

For this months TIF http://sharonb.wordpress.com/take-it-further-challenge/ the challange is What do you call yourself and why. I thought a long time about this and decided that for me, this did not mean to define myself, it is more about describing where I'm at artistically. This piece below was made several years ago, but it still applies to me. It says "Spinning around in circles, stuck inside the box", and by that I mean I'm still trying to break out of my old my old literal self and let the creative muse take over. I'm an analytical person, and I like to line things up, vertical and diagonal, squares - you get the idea, so I'm still a work in progress, but I know I've come a long way from the year I made this. I still have a ways to go in the learning curve, but I'm enjoying the lessons.

Thermofax screens

I read an article by Virginia Speigel in the current issue of Fiber and Stitch www.fibreandstitch.com about screenprinting with the thermofax and decided to make a screen with one of my Mendocino pictures. Below is the picture in it's original state. I put it into picassa and cropped it, then made it black and white, and finally added some highlights and shades.

I printed it out using the black ink only option on my computer, then tried it out on a piece of fabric. Nice, but looking at it I realized it was the opposite of what I wanted. I didn't want the piece of fabric covered with paint, I wanted just a few details with paint on them.

I can't figure out how to "invert" on Picassa, so I had my husband transfer it into photoshop (I'm an idiot when it comes to photoshop), and invert it. The piece below is exactly what I was looking for.

Mendocino

I just spent 4 days recuperating from my daughters wedding (pictures to follow when I get them). What a beautiful, magical place that is. We stayed in a B and B and spent our days tasting wine, visiting galleries and of course, walking on the beach. Here are a few of the pictures I took..Above is the Mendocino Botanical Gardens where the flowres all all blooming and the pond was spectacular. Below is glass beach in Fort Bragg where the whole beach is made up of smoothed over the years pieces of glass, apparently from bygone trash dumping in the ocean.

The last 2 pictures are from the beach right across the road from the B and B, a little cove with an island, and otters observing you closely from the ocean. Now that the "event" is over, I'm ready to make some art