Sleepy Portraits

this image is directly scanned from my dream journal where i also dabbled in blind contour drawings where i am half asleep. being inspired by surrealist methods of dream imagery and automatic drawing i tried to combine both my waking and subconscious state by attempting to draw faces while i was falling asleep. i think they came out great and this exercise was really fun. you can really tell where i was starting to actually fall asleep, i.e. the top left face is one where i was half asleep and you can see the pen is lightly touching the surface as opposed to the bottom pictures where the lines are clear and heavy.

Ikat

our first project for woven design, resisted ikat warps with a simple pattern

Jim Thorpe & Beltzville Lake

Shibori'd Out

for our first assignment in my print II class we learned the art of shibori, a resist dyeing technique that is similar to tye-dye. for this project we had to create at least 20 designs using the four techniques of shibori - planghi (wrapping), itajime (clamping), tritik (stitch) and arashi (tube wrapping). it was so much fun, i really enjoyed doing shibori but now we are moving on to batik designs. this whole shibori project took about a month to do.

planghi technique. for this particular piece i pleated the fabric and wrapped monofilament around it, throwing metal washers in the folds of the pleats to create the diamond shapes in the design.

arashi shibori. since this fabric was longer, i folded it in half and wrapped it around a pvc pipe, then wrapped monofilament around it to hold it in place. after wrapping, i swished the fabric to the end of the tube so it bunched together allowing for the color removing chemicals (thiox) to penetrate inside the folds to create this beautiful ripple.

tritik shibori. tritik is more of a pain to do because to stitching takes a much longer time then wrapping and clamping. for this particular piece i pleated the fabric diagonally and simply stitched a line in the center. once it unfolds, the line was repeated throughout the pleating, creating this lovely design. i ombred the fabric in orange dye for a more dynamic pattern.

itajime shibori. for this piece i folded the fabric in half and then in triangles. i placed a large metal "L" bracket on the top and on the bottom of the bunch and clamped them in place. after removing the color in thiox i then went back in and placed a large square metal square on top of the bunch and placed it back in the thiox to remove even more of the color, while saving the original purple color of the fabric and the color underneath the metal square.

Caution: Hot

I find these pictures if cooling and hot lava particularly beautiful yet gross, but that's really the best kind of beautiful!

Philly full of patterns

just some patterns i noticed around the corner from me and that i thought were interesting...

dream diary

for my surrealism class we are putting together a "surrealist journal" as a class and are required to submit something that is related to surrealism/forms of surrealism/things of interest/methods of practice, etc. of our own. for example, people have submitted poetry(which was a favorite of the surrealists), drawings, interviews, etc. for my contribution i decided to keep a dream diary that describes my dreams of the previous night in explicit detail. i have done this before multiple times and i can recall my dreams almost exactly from years before because my dreams are so vivid. 

i have decided to do this for a number of reasons, and the lesser reason is for my class. if you are close to me and know me well you would know that my dreams are an integral part of my life. they have resonated with me since i was little and i quickly found out that i was given the uncanny ability to recall my dreams in full detail, and when i say "full" i mean full detail. my dreams were not only vivid and burned into my memory almost every night that i dream, but they are also bizarre. dreams are often strange and weird, but mine happen almost every night. i am grateful that i am able to remember my crazy dreams so well because it gives me the ability to reach further into my subconscious mind then other people can. i write down my dreams in fear that one day i would forget and to someday share my mind with others. this project for my class is the perfect opportunity to do such a thing, i can share my subconscious mind with others and perhaps they can further illuminate more general notions of human desire.

my dreams, although extremely important to me have not yet found a way into my artwork. perhaps no project in school has given me the opportunity to use them, but now is the perfect time to start bridging the two together and create much more intimate and personal works.

Trimmings and carpets and furniture, Oh My!

today i took a trip with my print professor and a fellow student to get a lot of discount fabric at jo-mar in whittaker, and on our way there we stopped at the most amazing and overwhelming store i've ever been to. material culture, an ENORMOUS store filled with any kind of eastern-influenced furniture, artifacts, trinkets, fabrics, carpets, pots and pans, books etc. it took us about an hour and a half just to browse the entirety of the store. this place was exactly where i want to buy all my furniture from, and i won't forget this place too easily. i could have kicked myself for not bringing a camera with me, just describing it doesn't do it justice. we found the most amazing pile of trimmings and sari borders and i ended up buying two incredible trimmings that are handmade are a reasonable price. sometimes the hidden treasures like that are sooo worth it. 

this is one of the two trimmings that i bought. this is so delicate yet so weighty, i love the feel of it. there are spots in the chain that are falling apart and i love that about this piece. if you look closely at the golden leaves you can see that the gold thread is actually wire that has been so finely coiled that it looks like beading. my favorite part about this piece is the fact that it is all stitched to newspaper! if you look at the last picture you can see that on the back there are letters and words on the base, the entire piece has newspaper as the base.

the trimming above is extraordinary and the picture doesn't do it justice either. the beautiful blue-grey silk with hand beaded, hand-stitched, and intricately coiled metal thread are spectacular. its things like this that i live for....

the pictures are terrible, i know but until i get a better camera we will all just have to deal with it. so the lesson of this post is to go to material culture and have just as an amazing experience as i did.

Back to School

Today is the day to move into my new room at school in Sartain Hall (where I get my own room!) Although I am a senior living in the dorms again which is a little crappy, and i share a bathroom with the whole floor (which is also crappy) im still excited to be back at school. Classes start on Thursday, and I'm hoping that this will be a good year for me. Well here's to a successful school year!

Architecture of the Future

    i had some of these pictures scanned from two summers ago because i wanted to create a print inspired from these but never came around to it. now that i see them again, i might actually do it. thought i would share these with you.

Friday Night Thunderstorm Embroidery

i made this bookmark on a whim last week i think(?) and i realized i really needed more practice so...

i made this tonight for some practice. this printed fabric is a design that i had printed at Philadelphia University.

it was raining cats and dogs outside today and the tree across the street from us fell over!


bad picture that was taken from the upstairs window of my backyard being rained on like crazy

today's obsession: the tarot

i have been interested in tarot cards for a very long time, and found them important for life lessons and how to deal with problems. my dad used to read them for people but stopped a long time ago; i remember getting my first set at the pennsylvania renaissance faire when i was in 6th grade i think. i've been getting back into them recently and bought a new set and a new book. the rider or waite deck (pictured here) is perhaps the most universal and the illustrations are amazing. i would love to do a print based on tarot cards someday.

wish you were here: new zealand

new zealand, a place that has been at the top of my list for ages, will never leave it's cozy spot of number... 3. i mean, who doesn't want to go to the "adventure capital of the world" or where they shot Lord of the Rings? that makes seychelles number 4 i'd have to say ( i posted it last week?) these are some shots of the other island of fire and ice from National Geographic, i especially love the one below (that one for some reason really makes me want to go there).

it would be a great place to study nature and natural patterns. it's full of beautiful rock formations, odd creatures, and intricate maori art objects. again... some day kathleen, some day...