Paintings Proceed

First, documentary evidence of stripy windowsill kitty this afternoon the afternoon of July 6:

(My internet service has been PAINFULLY unresponsive for ages, but tonight it's back! To stay, I hope. Was it because of the World Cup?)

Next, paintings 3-7 of the 100 Paintings project--because I have decided I will publish all of them, even the bad less-appealing ones:

This one was inspired by the henna design I had on my arm a while back. I *really* like the background, but I was initially unenthralled with the painting because it didn't work like I envisioned. After not seeing it for a while I like it better. Acrylic paint with white gel pen for the outline.

This was my henna done by Roving Horse Henna:

...and I guess I'm done tonight after all; despite things generally behaving, pictures are v-e-r-y s-l-o-w. More paintings next time!

More Painting

First, an idealized picture of my workspace, adorned with my beautiful orchid.

Several in-process shots; this one is also watercolor.

And the final version--I actually rather like it overall, and several non-contiguous square inches are pretty good. The decorative things were to keep the brush busy while I figured out what to do in the center, and they ended up being undesirable. Note to self: keep a doodle paper at hand in the future, just in case. The snake wasn't going to get any better; it's pretty cute anyway, and I just stopped before something bad happened.

Finally, here is a bonus snake from my sketchbook in late May. For well over a year I've wanted to do a large, fancy snake painting, but I haven't managed to start--apparently starting with small snakes and working my way up is how it will happen! This painting was inspired by the little garter snake I saw while out walking. No, that snake did not look at all like my painting.

(The dark blue black is watercolor, the texture dots and eyes are gouache, and the shiny stars are acrylic.)

On the (Figurative) Easel

Since this is the first day of the rest of the year, it's really about time I add something new.

I decided a while back that I need to do 100 paintings. I keep wanting to paint, but I'm not actually very good at it, and I feel like these days I don't even know just what my "thing" is--motif, subject, story, symbolism. One good way to improve as an artist and to figure such things out, is to do a lot of things. Practice. It was proven to me a bunch of times at art school--make 15, 25, 30 things, and you WILL, guaranteed, end up with almost 30% good or extremely good things.

Anyway, I've been painting a lot of backgrounds. A couple are still only black gesso, and the rest are painted with acrylics.

And today, I finally got myself to paint one. I had to make it as simple as possible, and apparently that meant watercolor, because acrylic for whatever reason seemed intimidating. So here is painting number one!

99 to go!

Ring out the old...

Just a few pictures so I can squeeze in one more post while it is still 2013! They are things in progress that have been worked on over the past few months.

But first, a kitty picture. As of November 30, Beatrice has lived with me for a whole year. She is truly a different kitty than the one I brought home--she is affectionate and talkative, and has relaxed enough to be curious and sit on pieces of paper, and I can walk over to her and pet her and she doesn't skitter away--unless she has a reason of the sort discernable only to cats. This is the characteristic loungy kitty pose, in which most bathing takes place.

A tapestry sampler and an embroidery, both of which were started several archaeological layers ago:

Happy New Year!

Triangular Tidbit

A number of years back I became enthralled with Central Asian triangular amulets. Where did this all start? Reading "The Afghan Amulet: Travels from the Hindu Kush to Razgrad" by the intrepid Sheila Paine, and her book "Amulets: Sacred Charms of Power and Protection," not long after. Many of the triangular amulets I have spotted in pictures since then are really simple, barely more than triangles of fabric scraps. Some are more elaborate, and naturally I needed to make an elaborate one. I'm also quite smitten by mirror embroidery, so mine needed a mirror. And, lest the result be too stuffy, a googly eye. (Against the evil eye, get it?)

The mirror and the eye are attached with shisha stitch, and supplemented with smatterings of [uninspired] embroidery. At some point I produced a fingerloop braid to hang it by, and then it went dormant. It was in this stage for at least--yikes, maybe four years? Ladle Bug*** is observing:

(Seriously, Blogger? Why do you insist on rotating this?)

Recently I came across it--still miraculously in concert with its fingerloop braids and its assortment of cloves. Cloves were used on some amulets, and I had cloves, so I thought I should include them. The ones I used I believe I salvaged after making chai. While they were sodden, I stuck them on pins to make holes for eventual sewing purposes, and left them on the pins while they dried to prevent the holes from shrinking so small I couldn't get a threaded needle through them. So there were two or three straight pins full of dried cloves tagging along with the other ingredients.

Here it is--made three dimensional, cloves attached, tassels in progress. I wanted fancy tassel heads, and so I figured a bit of padding was in order (hence the black circles). Each bunch of cloves is on a short piece of wire with a rolled up loop at each end to stitch through. I think I would just use thread another time.

A close-up of buttonholing in progress, and a view of the tassel fringe. It is overtwisted and plied back on itself after a bead was positioned at the bend--so, no cut ends.

Linen is not satisfactory for this, being resistant and not having much body once you get done. Also, there has to be a better way to do it; I would love to watch a Central Asian woman make this kind of twisted fringe--they manage to do the overtwisting and beads AND incorporate that into a woven or twined band. I have to ponder a bit more and maybe do some experimenting. Or maybe I'm on the right track and the reason I used shortish lengths of string is why they change colors frequently...they are also using short pieces of string, because maybe it's just a pain to do.

Here is the amulet, finished:

And one more of the in-process photos, so you get the shiny mirror effect:

I think the only reason this remained unfinished for so long was that I got stuck on what to do with the embroidery. But this summer when I found it I decided--whatever, I just want it done, and I left the embroidery as it was. It is nicer done than waiting in limbo for a solution. It has been hanging by my desk at work for almost two months now; I cannot attest to noticing any effect. I think evil eye may not be a problem in Hillsboro, and this particular amulet doesn't seem to alleviate any normal work irritations--but I enjoy looking at it, so it helps in that way!

***Ladle Bug, aka Spoon Bug, joined my household a few years ago. I have a card saying, "Briana Kaufmann and Peter Neufeld."

Acrylic Interlude

Last Sunday, Kim and I attended the Open Painting session at The Loaded Brush. We had a really good time, and I have a new, completely-finished painting on my wall--and it's BIG by my normal standards, 16x20. I really need to paint more. It's so fast!

Curious how the last owl I made was also pink! Pink is not my favorite color, or even my second or my fifth favorite color. But it is cheery. Hot pink is pretty good, especially with orange. (This may be a side effect from having lived in New Mexico.) I think that's how this owl ended up pink--hmmm, the background is red and orange and yellow. Pink will match. Plus, I'm not very good with mixing colors, so staying reasonably analogous helps.

Here they are together for scale:

Before the painting class, I had thought, "Owl." Then, warm or cool? At the class, I got paint and went back to my easel...and I had red and yellow and white, so obviously warm was the choice. It will end up hanging in my studio, but for now it is on the much more accessible wall by my dining table.

Rose Tea & Velvet, Part II

On to the weaving! First, though, the allusion to rose tea is because that was the beverage of choice for the weekend afternoon velvet weaving sessions. Kim gave me some rose tea in December, and I was so smitten I bought more early this year. It's almost gone!

(Rose Petal Tea from Republic of Tea)
Okay, now really on to the weaving.

Once you're all set up, the weaving seems like a piece of cake. Basically, you weave three rows of ground weft (the same yarn as the ground warp) using both the ground warp and the pile warp. This will hold everything in position. Then for one row you lift only the pile warp and "weave" in a pair of thin brass strips. Then three more rows of ground weft with both sets of warp, then only the pile warp with brass strips. An authentic setup actually has a tiny (brass?) rod with a groove instead, but those are not commercially available. Quarter-inch wide brass strips can be found in hobby stores.

Three times...and then you are out of brass strips, because you only have three pairs.

THAT is when the fun really starts, because you take out a scalpel and slide it along between the brass strips, slicing your looped pile warp into genuine fuzzy pile. Ooh. Then you pet it, and weave the brass strips into the next spot. And on you go, with more fuzziness to pet each time you cut.

The worst striation is from tension issues with the pile warp--that is the main problem I will have to resolve the next time I try this. We had 1/2 ounce fishing weights, one per bobbin of pile warp, but those were actually way too heavy for what I needed, and I ended up taking them off and dealing with insufficient weight instead. It got pretty aggravating, but the results were better. Not fantastic, but better; with the too-heavy weights, the ground weft wouldn't stay firmly in place, and the tufts of pile didn't touch.

Why do you need weights anyway? Well, the pile warp weighs something. I found that I used about 10 inches of pile warp for every two inches of weaving...as you use up thread, the bobbins dangling from the cantra weigh less. The pile warp doesn't stay firmly wrapped over the brass strips, and it doesn't cut as evenly, even using the "hold your breath or exhale as you cut in one smooth pass" technique Barbara Setsu Pickett taught us. Next time around, I will try smallish washers as weight, so I can adjust it more incrementally.

As I mentioned, there is more take-up of the pile warp than the ground warp (i.e. you use more pile warp). If you had two back beams on your loom, you could theoretically wind ground warp on one and pile warp on another--except then you can't weave patterns in the velvet, because patterning means using different amounts of each warp group. To allow using different amounts, they really each have to be wound separately, and weighted so the pile warp is taut enough to behave.

I tried some simple patterning--sometimes weaving loops (called uncut velvet, when you just pull the rods out instead of cutting between them) or just not weaving pile at all in spots, which is called voided velvet. The blue square that miraculously appears from nowhere is a supplementary pile warp. I inserted it after the fact and let me tell you, it was very aggravating to weave! I could have improved it but it would have taken longer than being aggravated, so I opted for less time fiddling with setup and dealt with the aggravation since I only planned on a tiny section anyway.

With more harnesses on your loom (I only had four on the rented Rasmussen table loom) you can have several colors of pile warp to choose between, each threaded through its own harness. To switch colors, lift just the one you want to use. Next time I will *plan* to try it, instead of being spontaneous, and I will insert the extra set of warps in the beginning, and make string heddles to lift them (because my loom only has four harnesses, too).

Fun perspective:

And finally, off-loom velvet posing:

Pictures and info from elsewhere:
* Scroll down to see samples by Barbara Setsu Pickett with rods left in place.
* Adventures in Velvet Weaving by Suzi Gough; Journal for Weavers, Spinners and Dyers 221, March 2007 (this is a cached pdf which will download for you to read) The author took a similar workshop from Barbara, and wrote it up in greater detail.
* Blog post by someone who was in the same workshop as me and who also took better pictures.
* Barbara Setsu Pickett is also leading a study tour of velvet ateliers in Italy, for the Textile Society of America (webpage inaccessible at the moment). It looks quite excellent; if you have a bunch of extra vacation days and an even bigger bunch of dollars, you should go!
* Barbara Setsu Pickett at the loom--check out the little velvet books she makes from her weavings!
* Lisio Foundation (Florence) - velvet and brocade weaving