The weather, and other unpleasant facts

It’s 10:44 pm, and it’s still 86 degrees outside. No kidding. Ugh. The weather people tell me it is supposed to be 98 tomorrow. Now that it’s June, I know the weather isn’t going to do anything but be gross until October. All I can do is hope for a lot of rain to block the sun and try to balance my air conditioning bill against personal discomfort. You’d think I hadn’t grown up in the subtropics with all my complaining about the heat, but I just can’t seem to reconcile myself to being baked.

<–That’s my most recent painting. I’m experimenting with shapes and painting the negative spaces instead of the object itself. This is a technique exercise, just to try to see objects differently, to understand better how things are shaped. I like how it turned out, and I’m going to try more like it.

Summer calls for several things, craft-wise. I’ve put away all the blankets I’m making, and switched to things that aren’t hot to sit under. I have a couple of big crochet projects I’m planning (one left from last year) and a bunch of experimentation with fabric.

But first I have to put my house back together.

One thing I had to do for summer was move my sewing machine downstairs. Heat rises, and this apartment has craptastic insulation. No force on earth is powerful enough to make me stay upstairs during the day in a Tejas summer. Migrating my space has been this weekend’s production, and in fact we dragged the rest of the house into the evil reorganization vortex. I think Jeff and I moved all but 3 pieces of furniture over the last couple of days, a painful process.

Fact is that I feel as though I’m supposed to be moving right now. For the last 8 years I have moved every two years for school purposes. Big, go-to-a-different-city moves. Plus the natural upheaval of 5 years of thrice-yearly college semester changes. I wonder if I’m not having withdrawal, if the furnishings aren’t my way of making up for not being able to make a big change this year. After so much constant, regular change for so many years, I’m actually finding it more difficult than I imagined to continue in the same city, same house, and same job for a third year. I know people do this staying-in-one-place thing all the time, but I’m just not feeling it.

Anyway, another result of the shuffling-furniture project is that I have some new colors in my abode. The way I decorate takes my frequent redecorating into account – I have a primary color in here (brown) and then I use lots of colorful accents. This is a much less expensive way to make sweeping changes quickly. The red in my main space has given way to bright green. My front room has moved on to include orange and blue. I have three new sets of curtains to make and some pillows. And I have Plans for a couple of tables involving a combination of lacquer, paint and paper.

Thus begins summer. Jeff, of course, says I’m causing too much trouble for myself, but what would be the fun if I didn’t?

A Bit of Grass Painting

Painting may not be crafting, but it’s pretty nice. I use acrylics most of the time on canvas paper and wood. I started painting through happening upon some cast-off acrylics a long time ago. I decided I quite liked acrylics painting and kept doing it. That was about a decade ago.

I tried watercolors too since I seemed to like painting, and really, that was just okay. I tried oils, since they’re supposed to be The Thing To Do, but although I liked the texture I decided that I make too much of a mess to use them. I am not a tidy person. Organized, yes. Neat, no. Plus – linseed oil? Paint thinner? No, please.

I have four paintings here to show you that I’ve done. I rarely show the things I paint because I’m quite sensitive about them for whatever reason. I’ve grown mostly desensitized to showing my crafts and writing, but not my painting. So if you hate it and think my technique is sadly lacking, kindly don’t tell me.

I like reeds and grassy plants and color, and so that’s what inspired these. Oh, and I was inspired by this picture I took years ago at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. As far as the grasses go, I’m fond of the long thin stems, stalk-like plants, grass swaying in the breezes, that sort of thing. So here we have (in order) … bamboo, lavendar (which turned out quite purple in the picture, it’s not as … bright as it seems here), grass and cattails. I like the last one most. The cattails made me happy. The bamboo is my second favorite.

[note: the graininess is my camera's fault. will have to fix. these aren't grainy.]

I <3 fabric

Good day for fabric! I’m generally excited about fabric and nothing is more interesting than new fabric techniques & types. I do love exploration of new stuff.

FIRST: in my wandering I discovered the wonder that is Ah! Kimono, which is a site that will sell you pieces of fabric from kimonos. I received my first package of fabrics (<– over there) with a lovely note this week. These are all green-hued, about 9″ x 9″ and I think (totally not sure!) they’re silk. Let me just tell you that my photo does not do these fragments justice. They’re beautiful, and have awesome texture and sheen. One is pebbly and rough and thin, another is thick and silky…

Having a weakness for fabric, I joined Ah! Kimono’s quarterly fabric club. I did that so that I wouldn’t be able to choose what colors or styles I get. I have a bad habit of picking the same things over and over, and I thought this would be a great chance to get something new and unexpected to play with. What will I do with it? I don’t know. I have an idea about a skirt, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten.

Also! SECOND. I got this book in: Fabric Art Workshop by Susan Stein. Very nice. I’ve looked through it about 5 times today since I got it. Fabric painting is something I’ve done a little, but technique and materials was sketchy for me. This clears some questions up, while giving me new ideas about things to try for decorating fabric. Like dyeing fabric with rust, that’s a new one. Got plenty of materials around here for that idea.

I ordered the book because I was curious about some techniques I saw reading a recent issue of Cloth P aper Scissors that I picked up (not the current one, the one with the yellow birdhouse on the front). If you haven’t seen it, it’s a lovely mixed-media magazine from Quilting Arts, seems like a nice bridge between sewing and painting.

So clearly I’m not doing well on the “fewer things to do” classification of life, but hey, I don’t actually have any fabric paint right now, so at least I can’t hare off to do it right now. The kimono fabric, on the other hand…