10 Days Left 45% off

There are only 10 days left to get 45% off on all of my Spring and Summer prints in my new online store. That means a mounted, matted, shrink-wrapped print that sells for $35.00 is reduced to $19.25! That is the lowest price I have ever offered on my prints. You must type "SPRINGSALE" in the discount code box at checkout to get the sale price. Any of these prints would make a great Easter gift.

Click on this link to visit my store; Art on Silk & Paper 

Spring Sale in My New Bigcartel Online Store!

I am having a Grand Opening Spring SALE in my online store! To celebrate my new online store I am offering 45% off all spring & summer limited edition prints. That's the lowest price ever offered on my prints! They would make great Easter gifts so stock up now because the sale ends on 4/10/12.

You must use the discount code "SPRINGSALE" at checkout for the sale price to show up. The sale is only on the prints in the "Spring & Summer" section of my shop. A $35.00 Limited Edition print with mat, foam core and shrink-wrap will be only $19.25! Offer ends 4/10/12. 

Click this link to visit my shop: My Online Store

Framing; Revenge of the Black Speck

Those of you that do your own framing will know exactly what the title of this blog post is all about. Man oh man did we have a terrible time with black specks yesterday while we were framing up two of my silk paintings!!! I lost track of the number of times we had them apart and put back together only to find yet another black speck! We finally got out the vacuum and vacuumed the glass, frame and workspace and after another couple of tries they were speck free. Whew!

Don brushing off the cleaned glass

Taking it apart after finding specks!

First one finally done, having a go at the second one

After about the 5th try we vacuumed the frame, glass and table!

OMG ANOTHER DUST SPECK!!!!!!! 

Finally got it! Get that framers paper on quick before the dust specks come back!

Done! All framed and ready to ship!!!!

"MESSY WORK TABLE" Photo Collaboration

Lynn Krawczyk of Fibra Artysta put out a call for "Messy Work Tables" for a photo collaboration she is doing. She has asked people to post photos of their messy work tables on their blogs. She will be posting links to all the blogs with photos of their messy work tables on her blog today (Monday March 26th). So here are some photos of my work table in various states of disarray.

And here is what it looks like when it is clean!

Here are some of the other artists that participated in the Messy Work Table photo collaboration

Mary Cottingham

Judi Hurwitt

Kathy Schmidt

Jacqueline Bryant Campbell

Jill Eudaly 

Jenice Jones 

Ronni Hunter

Cheryl Sleboda

Carol Swallowcliffs

Ann Brauer


Holly McLean
Joy Manoleros 
Deb Harowitz

Baskets and Gourds - Containers of Our Culture, Class by Jackie Abrams

My amazingly talented, multi award winning friend, Jackie Abrams, will be teaching the following classes in Visalia, Ca in April. This is an incredible opportunity to learn from a highly acclaimed and extraordinarily gifted, master basket weaver. Jackie lives here in Vermont so if you live in Ca or have friends that might be interested in learning to weave paper baskets from Jackie then be sure to take advantage of this opportunity while she is in Ca!

Pass this info on to your Ca. friends, there are only a few spots left so be sure to reserve your space via the link below. 

Baskets and Gourds - Containers of Our Culture

April 21 - Kimono Baskets - Paper Weavings

April 22 - Woven Cathead Baskets - Paper Weavings

Visalia, California

http://www.calgourd.com/index.html

Kimono Basket by Jackie Abrams

Woven Cathead Basket by Jackie Abrams

Jackie Abrams (on right) teaching

Thickened Dye Silk Scarves After Steaming

Here are my Very Veggie and Wild Flowers scarves after they were steamed for 2 hours and ironed. I am really happy with the outcome.

Painting Happy Despite Relapse

Well, despite doing everything right, diet, meds, supplements, positive outlooks, prayer, and all that good healing stuff I am having a relapse again. For the last few weeks I have had intense pain in my hands and no feeling at all in my fingers when I wake up in the morning. Also having pain/weakness related mobility issues again. I am so swollen all over I look like I am on steroids, like a big puffy marshmallow. Yesterday my Dr ordered the CD57 test...thinking the Neurological Lyme is acting up again. It is so strange because when I touch my fingers to my face or arm they are so numb that they do not feel like part of my body, they feel corpse like. 


I am using every moment of creative time in the studio as a prayer of gratitude that I am still able to create art! Thank you God for the awesome gift of my ongoing ability to create! I think the 2 whimsical scarves I have been working on this week perfectly reflect the joy I feel at still being able to work in the studio.

Detail of Wild Flowers

Detail of Wild Flowers 

Hubby cracking me up while taking photos

Such a happy scarf!

All those crazy flowers gotta make you smile!

Very Veggie and Wild Flowers hanging on the line waiting to be steamed

Thickened Dyes, Very Veggie and Wild Flowers

Spent yesterday in the studio painting silk scarves with thickened French dyes. I am loving working with these thickened dyes, it is so different from working with the tradidional gutta resist and liquid dyes. Has a much more painterly feel to it. I love the "Very Veggie" scarf! It is wet in these photos so it lightened up a bit when it dried. Can't wait to see how it turns out after steaming.  Today I will add color to the leaves, flowers and bees on the "Wild Flowers" scarf. Here are some photos of what I am working on.

Click Photos to Enlarge

The dyes are still wet in this photo so the background looks darker that it actually is. 

Adding the background color to the Wild Flowers scarf

The Very Veggie scarf drying

The Very Veggie scarf while still wet. Background color will dry lighter than it looks here

Going to paint in the flowers, bees and leaves in on this one today

Gallery Orders, Mounting silk, Matting Prints. Buy My New Prints Here

 I've been filing a lot of orders from galleries over the last week. Spring is in the air and I guess everybody is tired of looking at paintings of snow so I am sending out fresh stock in bright Spring and Summer colors. I mounted my 2 latest silk paintings and sewed them to cotton rag board. Then I photographed them and printed, numbered and signed the prints of them as well as a ton of other prints that are going out.

Mounting silk to archival 100% cotton rag museum board

Matting and shrink-wrapping tons of Spring prints to ship out to galleries

"Summer Breeze" is one of the paintings I mounted today 

To Purchase a 10 x 11" signed and numbered limited edition print of "Summer Breeze" for $25.00 click the secure Pay Pal button below. Measurement is approximate and includes mat.

"Promise of June" is the other painting I mounted today

To Purchase a 10 x 11" signed and numbered limited edition print of "Promise of June" for $25.00 click the secure Pay Pal button below. Measurement is approximate and includes mat.

Signs and Omens, Feeling a Sense of Loss

We have been showing the house every weekend so on Friday's I have to pack up what ever project I am woking on and clean up my studio, which is hard to do when you are as engrossed in a project as I am in this gelatin printing. I have all these great ideas floating around in my head for things I want to try out but alas I need to tidy the studio and clean the house instead. It will be such a blessing when we are settled into a new home back in the country where we feel more comfortable.

The other day we were standing on a property that we really love in Westminster and I was asking for some sort of sign to let me know if it was the right property for us. Suddenly 2 huge Ravens started doing this romantic dance across the sky. They were flying in circles around us, playing and calling out. Rising and falling on the currents of the wind. Don and I really love this piece of property but there are a couple of issues we were concerned about. Last night we looked it back up on the realtors website and noticed it is under agreement. We are both trying to trust that we are being guided towards what is best for us and that perhaps that was not it, but still we are feeling a sense of loss and sadness today.

Here is my latest print, Signs and Omens. It represents our listening and watching as we ask God to guide us to the perfect new home for us.

Signs and Omens

Burning Stencils for Monoprints

My husband came home yesterday, walked into my studio and cheerfully said "You look nice. It's good to see you in the studio again". Well to fully appreciate the humor of this you have to have the scene laid out for you a bit. The studio table was filled to capacity with the monoprints, paints, texture items, mylar sheets, bits of burned mylar and stencils that I had burned. I was in the process of burning stencils and I had a huge really ugly, dusty pink, fleecy, studio shirt on and a gas mask on my face. My hair was completely matted down from the straps of the gas mask. I looked up at him sure that he was being sarcastic and realized he was serious! Gotta love, love, love that man!!!!!! Only the eyes of his heart could have seen beauty in me at that moment. ;~)

Burning Stencils with a gas mask to protect myself from the smoke

Burning out circles on a stencil it is not the most pleasant job, think I am going to try cutting out the next batch and see which method is easier

The burned out bits can be used as a resist stencil when printing

End of the day cleaning up my mess a bit before making dinner