Indigo and Ice Dye. A perfect combo!

What a fun way to say farewell to summer. This weekend the hubs and I took a well-deserved break at our friends Emily and Ed's lovely place on Clear Lake in Northern CA.

It was lovely. Restfulness is a perfect breeding ground for creativity and Emily is one of the most creative people I know. She knew the perfect way to entertain a creative friend... Bring out the dye pot!

Before we hit the road, per Emily's instructions, I stopped at the fabric store and bought a bunch of white fabric. I chose some nice quality cotton, canvas duck and ticking with a blue stripe.

The first thing we did was indigo. Indigo is magic. The color is so luscious and rich. The fabric comes out of the dye bath an electric, bright chartreuse and turns into a deep, rich blue right before your eyes. We used this kit from Dharma Trading. At nine bucks, it's a deal and provides hours of dyeing fun.

I was an indigo novice, but under Emily's tutelage it was a piece of cake. Follow the package directions and mix the dye in a bucket. Let it sit for a few and you are ready to turn everything you own blue. We laundered our fabrics before dyeing to remove any sizing from the fabric. I did a few tied pieces of fabric. I used twine and rubber bands to hold accordion folds in place and dropped the whole thing in and gave it a few stirs. The color saturation depends on how long you leave the fabric in the dye. I suggest making a few test pieces. I kept mine in for 5-10 mins and dipped a couple twice for more intensive color. When you are ready, remove the fabric from the dye bath (wear rubber gloves, or have blue hands...your choice) and squeeze excess dye back into the pot. Undo the ties and hang to dry. The color will develop more as the cloth dries.

Like I said. Magic.

Next we did something that was completely new to me. It was a dyeing method that Emily had done before with our friend Lisa, owner of Baubles & Beads in Berkeley, CA. I had seen the results and loved the effect.

First you start with a piece of fabric, shirt, pillowcase... whatever. Wet it in a pot of soda ash solution to prepare it for the dye and then tie, fold, pleat or just bunch your fabric on a surface that will allow draining- like a baking rack on sawhorses.

 Like this.

 We used this dye from Dharma. It's a powdered dye. It comes in a bazillion colors. Find them all here. It was really easy to use.

 Lay your bunched or tied fabric on the rack and cover it with ice cubes. Then get a plastic spoon and sprinkle the dye on the ice. I used about three colors per piece. Don't use too much. Just a light sprinkle over the ice. as it melts, the ice distributes the dye. Add more ice and dye as needed to saturate the fabric. It's a pretty loose process. Just let the muse move you. We left our stuff for a couple of hours. The heavier canvas took a bit longer and a bit more ice and dye.

You can see how the color spreads when the ice melts. When it looks good, untie the bundle if needed and rinse until water runs clear. We washed all of ours in the washing machine with the recommended detergent and done! We washed the indigo together and the other like colors together. The detergent helps to set the colors and prevent the dye from running.

From this...

...to this. This is a t-shirt that my husband made.

More finished pieces...

 on cotton.

And canvas. Looking forward to the "next steps" with these pieces of cloth.

I see a lot of cool tote bags in the future. I'll keep you posted.

I Played Hooky

Yep. I know Bead & Button is just a few days away. Right. I know that my book deadline is shortly after I get back. Uh huh. Yes. I have not packed my clothes and I may or may not have enough room in my suitcases for all of the tools I want to bring to Milwaukee. I should be working on a website redo for Jess Imports and my Etsy store needs stocking.

Who cares?

I played hookey today. And it was the best damn time.

It all started a couple of weeks ago. My friend Andrea Chebeleu owns an amazing Studio Workshop in San Jose, CA called A Work of Heart. She teaches mixed media classes and has a variety of really cool classes on her schedule. (Including mine from time to time.) She stocks a bunch of art supplies and interesting things. It's like a creative explosion in there.

So, like I said, a couple of weeks ago Andrea posted on Facebook that she was preparing to teach a few online classes at CreativeLive in San Francisco that needed a few students in the audience. The topics all had to do with painting, art journals and reusing/repurposing your art. I was hooked at "online class" and "paint." Plus I have always loved the art she creates and the opportunity to learn some of her techniques sounded too good to miss. Plus right here in SF? Sign me up!

I followed the link to the application, answered a few questions and a couple of days later I got an email welcoming me to join the class. "Cool," I thought. I added it to my Google calendar, set a reminder and got back to the task at hand.

I got a couple of emails from CreateLive about the general info for the day. Parking. What to wear. Photo release. A general rundown of what they do. Again I thought, "Cool." Checked that my calendar alerts were on and went on with my day.

Fast forward to yesterday. In the midst of being so very, very busy lately, I didn't think much about what we were going to do in the class(es). When I arrived at the studio I immediately ran into Andrea as she was putting the final finishing touches on class prep. Everything looked great, but what caught my eye was that next to each of the four student tables was a 3-TIERED CART OF ART SUPPLIES!!!! My heart gave a leap of joy and I thought, "I am gonna get to use all that stuff. ALL THAT NEW, SHINNY, JUST-FOR-ME-TO-USE-STUFF!!!" It was like getting a new box of Crayons on the first day of school. Except better.

I met my fellow students (lovely ladies), had a bite to eat (lovely breakfast in the caf/kitchen/meetingroom), got the rundown from the producer and host and wired with a mic (lovely and professional crew.) Then it was ON! Usually CreateLive classes are live on air, but this particular series was a live-to-tape for broadcast at a later date. Three classes were filmed over the course of the day... Making Collage Papers, Art Journals 101 and Recycling Your Art.

Now let me let you on on a little secret. Painting and drawing and journaling has always been a bit intimidating for me. I mean... yeah, I've done a lot of that stuff from my days as a theatre major in college to last week when I jotted down some jewelry ideas in my idea book. But it's never seemed effortless. Until yesterday.

I think it was the combination of the fast pace of the class and the focused direction and effective design coaching that Andrea gave the students. Plus having a full cart right to my left full of everything I needed. So I just did it.

The first class showed us how to create collage papers for our work. On of my favorite techniques was using regular and sticky-back foam to make our own stamps for printing.

Brilliant!

Then we did things like gelatin printing, layering paper with all kinds of paints, stamping, smooshing, dabbing. Using acrylic ink. (Also a new favorite. Drop them on paper and then spray with water. Magic!)

Acrylic Ink. Water. Bamboo skewer. Bubble wrap. Amazing!

The day went by so quickly that I hardly had a chance to snap photos, but here are a few highlights.

 

Journal Page

Collage Paper

Journal Page Two

Andrea and Kate peeking.

All of the techniques were really interesting and I learned a lot. My favorite takeaways were:

1. When choosing paint colors to mix and layer wet use two of the three primary colors. Mix a variation of two (or three) and you'll get those colors plus the color they make (blue+red=green). Mix a variation of all three primary colors and you'll get mud. ( Blue+red+yellow=brown). That helped to keep my colors vibrant.

2. This art is for YOU. It's a way to get your creative thoughts on paper. Not everything is pretty, but almost everything is usable in some form.

3. Bubble wrap is your friend. Put some paint on it and use it to print on paper. Genius.

4. Take pictures of your art and use it in other ways. A printout is an immediate collage paper. Use it for backgrounds, images and elements in other areas of your work. (Think website backgrounds, business cards, even printed fabric.) When you use your original designs it gets more of your "hand" in your art. 

Collage on canvas. Using photocopies of journal pages as the background.

And one last big takeaway. This.

The contents of that three-tiered cart? Yep. Each of us got to take home our art supplies. It was better than winning a car from Oprah! (You get acrylic paints and stencils and spray ink... and you, and you!) So unexpected. And so appreciated.

If you want to learn more about Andrea and her fantastic shop and classes, visit her website.  Find out more about CreateLive here. There are a lot of interesting classes beyond their craft offerings.

Even though I've packed away my art supplies, I am thinking about filling all of those pages in that blank art journal. After my deadlines. And looking forward to playing hooky another day.