Monday, March 16, 2009

Fun Fun Fun

This is our last week of Art Quilt Explorations with Jane LaFazio, and we are all suffering from extreme separation anxiety! What a wonderful class, and what a great teacher!!! This week we are stamping and stenciling, with no particular end result in mind. But I do have some definite ideas which I cannot share with you right now! After the class assignment arrived in my email box last Thursday, I began sketching ideas in my little purse notebook as C and I drove around the city. Whenever I saw something that caught my eye, I'd sketch it out, thinking it might be good stamp fodder. So there you have it!



I started carving my stamps yesterday, and it got waaaay too addictive! I ran out of erasers, so I'll have to go back to Utrecht and buy some more! (They love Barker there, and since they are only a block down Peachtree from our condo, he goes often. In fact, he automatically turns into the doorway when we pass it! He loves all of the young ladies who work there....and they love him!!!.........makes for a happy shopping trip for me!)

I have been waking up in the middle of the night thinking about the designs I wanted to add to Susan Purney Mark's Round Robin piece. Here is how it arrived on my doorstep:















Last night (well, this morning at about 2:23 AM) I finally decided to draw a Thermofax screen and then do some discharging of the dyes on Susan's lovely piece. This is what happened:







I really like it! It was great fun (I used Publix Dishwasher Gel) and my friend Robin arrived in the studio just as I began, so we talked and laughed while I completed Susan's piece! What fun!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I had decided to make another soup! What is it about cold, rainy days that seems to bring on the soup mentality? Anyway, I had clipped out yet another recipe from the AJC and this afternoon I whipped up this recipe for Creamy Butternut Squash Soup. It is so delish!! Trust me!! I'll let you know when I get the recipe printed out here.

















Be creative! Every Day!!!!

12 comments:

connie said...

I love your stamp patterns! They look like such fun. I have been thinking about trying to make some. Are you using the white erasers. I look forward to seeing where this takes you.

The butternut squash so looks delicious. By the way your stove top looks too clean.

have a good one.

Gerrie said...

...til your Daddy takes your T-bird away. Now I have that song going on in my head. Great work. Isn't the stamp carving so much fun?

Eva said...

Rubber stamps! I prefer "Läufer" erasers, they are best to cut. I cut them into slices and fix them on something that can be used as a handle. Cork, small logs of wood or paper clay is good. So you can make loads of stamps out of one eraser.

Joyce said...

Your discharge stamping is beautiful. I want to try some of that too. Oh why aren't there more hours in the day???

Elizabeth said...

Yes stamp carving is totally addictive!! you need to bust out of eraser size constraints and get some soft cut blocks. Buy it from Dick Blik or you might be able to find it locally. sometimes you can find 5x7 pieces a tmicheals- in the fine paints section!! Love your discharge work and the soup looks fabulous! We still have rain and gray hear- getting old, but we really need the rain!!
Hugs!
elizabeth

Michele/TextileTraveler said...

I love carving stamps and have started buying the huge blocks of soft-cut stuff, figuring I can cut it down to whatever size I want. Sounds like Jane's class is every bit as good as I knew it would be; I'm still kicking myself for not taking it! Great job on the RR piece; that's a beautiful design.

imquilternity said...

Your stamps are great...I love the patterns you carved. They are simple but quite effective, especially as repeats. Your discharging really has helped to create a more complex and beautiful piece of fabric. Will we get to see the finished piece?

Carol said...

Now I want to carve stamps, make soup, all those good things. But I have to tell you, my building is under way and I may have a kitchen by end of next week! Soup! Then once the bedroom and living room are finished I can unpack and get my workroom organised. Stamps! I'm just about to head off to Sydney and Canberra to do two workshops with Ed Hutchins (NY) so hope that when I return next Wednesday evening there'll be lots more done to my house. It really is an act of faith to go away and let them do it without me but my son says it's easier if I'm not hanging over the builders. We've just removed a snake from the swimming pool - a poisonous one, but I put it over the fence into the bush and hope it doesn't come back. It's illegal to kill a snake here but I couldn't do it anyway, so I just hope that it realises how lucky it is and decides to stay away. That makes deadly funnelweb spiders, trapdoor spiders, scorpions and a snake that we've fished out of the pool. Lucky we're not easily scared of the wildlife. OOXX

Amanda said...

Hey where is the picture of your dishcharged piece. did Robin really come to your studio at 2.30 am ?
Amanda

Karoda said...

the irridescent-ness of the scarf comes through in the 2nd photo of it...and it looks so soft. i thought the soup was some type of dye experimenting going on :)

keep having fun Judy, it is inspiring and contagious!

PaMdora said...

These are great stamps! I've carved a few abstract ones, but hadn't thought of trees and leaves. I'll have to get back into that.

PaMdora said...

p.s. They let Barker in your art store? Must be a cool place!