Dyeing

I haven't dyed much in months, so I decided to get some of the pots out and work on some of my bag of mohair. I wanted some muted green/blues. They turned out reasonably well, I especially like the blue.


The pinkish stuff is more a silvery grey in life, and the green is a bit deeper. Now I must do something with it!

The silk for Athanasius is proving to be difficult to obtain the correct colour on. I want a dark muted brown (almost black)-not a chocolatey brown though. That is the challenge. Perhaps I'll try black walnut-of course then I'll have to hunt some down, as there are none here. I've never used black walnut before, but it should be a straight forward cooking pot method, which is easy.

I am beginning to feel like I will require the perseverance of Athanasius to get it finished, heheh.

I've got too many projects going at once. Since I also work sporadically now, My general way of doing things, ie whenever the heck I feel like doing it, has been interupted. Gotta get used to that. Well I tell myself I must do something to get the money to buy dye stuff. :)

ETA: I spun up a little bit (one combing's worth) of the mohair with that brown alpaca I am so fond of-it is a rather pleasant muted teal overall.

We Gotta Take This Message...

Back To The Street, hand drawn, digitally coloured.

Though I suppose it is rather cliche (hey I feel I should do the expected for a few of them at least-that keeps everyone guessing) I decided to do a tag-ish style. I have never dabbled in that type of work much (despite being an old skool rap fan) and found it quite enjoyable. Even the digital colouring. I didn't need to do the careful line work for this one, and I wanted the texture without having to actually use spraypaint. :)

Though I didn't do grafitti per se I have always loved doing odd lettering. Such things as this filled the school hours when I was not skipping and kept me from dying of boredom. In fact these were the impetus of this project-I thought I had more of them since I did this constantly and was surprised of how much of it I had lost. I will resurrect some of the old designs, maybe soon as I loved doing this one.

UFO No More

I am trying to clear out some of my longtime WIP's on my days off, one of which was my new curtain. I've had it finished for awhile but had to decide how to attach it and add the lining. I finally got around to doing so, proving it was not a UFO (unfinished object) but rather a WIP (work in progress). Heh!
The difference between the two, BTW, is narrow but vital. One floats around your house haunting you forever (ultimately a UFO should perhaps be called an unfinishable object), whereas the other is eventually completed.

I don't care for the rod I have at all, but I suppose it will do. I need mounting brackets as it's hanging on the old rod for the vertical blind right now. I also need to steam it once I get it up there permanently.

It turned out reasonably well. There are of course things I would do differently if I had it to do over again. Experience is the best teacher after all.

oh happy day
when I threw the plastic slats from the vertical blind away!

Mucha Me

I finally got a free day! (I just finished working 6 shifts in 5 days, figure that out.) I certainly did not expect to be working so often, though I was warned this could happen. Soon the regular staff members will be back from holidays, so I should be getting fewer call-ins.

Also my brother and his son (Aves who is pictured in the footer of this blog), SIL and the hellions were here on the weekend. Those days never count as "days off". :)

Anyway, instead of being particularly productive on things I should be doing, I made a self portrait in the style of Alphonse Mucha:



I deesigned it on a whim, like everything I do. For whatever reason, I thought I'd digitally colour the original sketch. I have learned that I hate digital painting. My hands are killing me (yeah both of them-I drew on the tablet with my left and moused with my right-what do right handed people do!?) and it took forever! Of course my OCD-like tendencies would not allow me to quit when it was half done. This is why I rarely do large scale works.
I'm surprised at how even with the tablet I had a difficult time with line control. You can see this in the drunken look of the heavier lines. Bah. Still it looks kind of nice, if simpler and messier in general than Mucha's own pieces. The flower...thingy turned out weird though, I might go back to it when my hands are feeling better and I get my next day off, whenever that may be.