my favorite tie dye shirt so far and EXCITING NEWS!

I’m moving to Virginia Beach in Oct! I can’t wait! I signed up for an apt in a new building made of concrete and steel. The floors won’t creak. I’ll be on the top floor (4th). It’s LUXURY, BABY! My balcony will overlook trees. My daughter lives in Norfolk, so it will be easier to get together with her, since Virginia Beach and Norfolk are connected.

They are two cities, but they look like one huge city. The population is much denser than Richmond. I’ll have so many new places to explore. A lot of places I’ve been to many times and wished I could hang around long enough to paint, now I can. I can go to the ocean front any time I want to. It will seem like being on permanent vacation!

I have a feeling it will be a good move for me.

About this shirt: It’s the ice dye method. I liked the way it came out but the bottom of the shirt had the brighter colors and the top of it was kind of blah. One good thing about adult X larges is that they are way too long on me and I have plenty of fabric to do an alteration. So, I traced the neck edge on tracing paper. I took out the stitches around the neck and sleeves and cut the shirt down 4″from the top. I lowered the sleeve holes 4″ and the shoulder seams. Then I recut the neck edge using my pattern and sewed the ribbed band back on, sewed the sleeves in and voila! It’s an improvement!

 

making fun of Renaissance painting

lifted from imgur.com

Isn’t that a scream?!

Day lilies / pastel

I sketched them with charcoal 4 times on 4 different days. Every time I got home and looked at my sketch I thought I could do better.  It seemed like each sketch did come out a little better than the previous one, and all that sketching helped me plan my pastel. Each time the flowers looked all different from the day before so I decided to use pastels because I can build up layers of color in one day, as opposed to oil paint, when I have to wait overnight for a layer of glazes to dry before going over it again.

One day when I was sketching with charcoal a visitor to the garden came over to this beautiful bunch of flowers and said to me, “I can’t resist.”

When I’m in the zone drawing I can still talk to people but sometimes it takes me a second to see what they’re talking about. The lady was pulling off something from the flowers. She told me they’re “dead heads”. She has day lilies too and told me they bloom better if you take the dead heads off. We talked for a couple minutes about the day lilies.  I asked her to look for the plaque, but she didn’t see anything saying what particular variety this is. She continued to pull off the dead heads, but I told her to leave some for me to draw with pastels the next day. She said, “Oh, you’ll have a lot of new ones tomorrow.” She told me they only bloom one day, that’s why they call them day lilies.”  I thought they got that name because they closed up at night. So you learn something new  if you hang around and draw.

Next time I draw them I might do an experiment to find out for myself if they really only bloom for one day. I could tie a thread around the stem of a big bud and check it for 3 days in a row as I’m hanging around there working on a pastel every day for a couple hours. I’m always kind of a skeptic, and like to verify  some things if I can.

We had some real nice weather this week. It’s going to get hot and humid again soon, but I want to do another pastel of day lilies in another color. I’ll go back next week and try to find a place in the shade.

Daylilies / charcoal

This is my 2nd try sketching daylilies. I think it came out better than the drawing from last week, so next time I’m going to take my pastels and do them in color. They say the heat and humidity will ease up in a couple days. That will make it easier for me to concentrate longer.

These flowers are a bright peachy pink! So bright! So pretty!

They change every day and even in a couple hours are moving to follow the sun, so I won’t be able to use this sketch. Some of the flowers I drew today will be wilted and some new buds will be opening.

I got a mosquito bite. I’m their favorite flavor, O+

canna and coleus / charcoal

The canna is yellow (the tall stalk like plants) and the coleus is dark blackish red (the shorter plants in the fore ground).

I had a look at the lotuses standing in the sun and decided to find some flowers where I could sit in the shade to draw. It’s not as hot as yesterday, but sweat was still dripping off my hair after walking slowly around the garden. After cooling off on a shaded bench for a while I was ok to draw. And there was a little breeze that was nice. I haven’t been out to draw for a while and I enjoyed it very much.

A lady I know liked this sketch and asked me if I was going to do something with it. I told her I’ll just put it on my blog. Sometimes I do a lot of charcoal sketches before I get something that I want to paint.

The thing I enjoy about drawing and painting in plein air is not in knocking out a painting in a few hours, it’s hanging around in a beautiful place for as many days as I feel like being there. In fact, the painting is secondary in my mind. I’m so thankful I’m not on some kind of art treadmill where I’m under pressure to do fast unfinished paintings for some arbitrary time limit rule some person made up. That would destroy the zen like experience of it. And one of my main reasons for not fitting into the art scene. I don’t care if fast unfinished paintings are in style. I don’t care if all the other plein air painters out there take hundreds of photos then trace their best one onto a canvas and go back and hurry fill it in like it was a coloring book. I don’t have to do that.

I’m not interested in taking a class to see if I can paint fast. I’m not interested in taking a drug to make me keep painting all day either, because a drug is the only way I could ever get that kind of energy. So, there you have it friends, apathy to the art world in a nutshell. hahahahahahhaha

I did another tie dye t shirt

This one came out more colorful on the back. I’ll take 3″ off the length and cut a 4″ fringe then bead it on the bottom.

See those orange circles surrounded by blue? I did a little experiment. I put rubber bands over beads inside the shirt. Then I put orange dye on the little bead bumps I made. and then put squares of plastic wrap on top of the orange dye with more rubber bands so the blue dye wouldn’t flow into the orange. Then I scrunched up the rest of the shirt and banded it up and used the ice dye technique to add color to the rest of the shirt.

That was fun. I bought another t shirt. I might try to do more contrasting circles using beads and plastic wrap. I’m excited about how bright my shirts are coming out.

tie dye shirt and shorts I made / modeled @ Lewis Ginter

The tie dye was fun. The shorts were difficult..

This time I cut 3″ off the length of the shirt and cut the fringe 3″ before sewing on the beads. I like this length and it’s more practical with the shorter fringe because it doesn’t get tangled.

The shorts are a polyester linen blend so they’re cooler than my denim shorts, but I had to resew my seams to make it fit right. I used the same pattern that was ok before, but this time it seemed too baggy. Now I want to resew the blue ones I made and then take them apart so I can draw my pattern to fit exactly next time. It will be a big job.

Sewing is more difficult than painting. I don’t understand why “craft” gets less respect than “art”. They’re the same to me. Art and craft both require practice, patience, skill etc. so I wonder why sewing isn’t seen in the same way as an oil painting or a sculpture. No one would doubt YSL is an artist, but is the seamstress who makes her own clothes also considered an artist? I would say yes. The sewing ladies are artists  too. And if you have enough dexterity and patience to sew you can also do any kind of painting you like. The more you practice and experiment the better you get at it. Good teachers help. I was lucky to have good sewing teachers and art teachers. When I made that tie dye shirt, I wanted to try to do a flowery motif. I was thinking of making flowers on top of the shirt and green foliage on the lower part, kind of like the YSL dress.  This one is my 2nd try to get the flower look with tie dye. The 1st one didn’t come out.  I’ll probably throw it away.

I’m ruthless with the things I make. Sometimes I throw away a whole year’s worth of paintings if I decide not to show them again, and I’ll throw away any tie dye that doesn’t look good to me. If I wasn’t that way with my “creations” my apt. would be too crowded.

I’ll try another tie dye.

Meanwhile, here’s some roses for your inspiration.

YSL fashions at the VMFA

Hmmm. My photo is a little fuzzy.

This one is my daughter’s favorite.

Evening gown. Autumn-Winter 1983 haute couture collection. Paris pink silk satin bodice with large bow and black silk velvet skirt.

This one is my favorite. I might try to steal it some day.

Daytime dress Autumn – Winter 1967 Saint Laurent rive gauche collection. Yellow cotton pique dress: sleeves and hem trimmed with red guipure (a kind of lace). Archives Anouschka Paris

Sexy piecing, huh?

Evening gown. Homage to Tom Wesselmann Autumn – Winter 1966 haute couture collection. Purple wool jersey with pink wool jersey piecing.

Evening gown Autumn = Winter 1997 haute couture xollection. Bodice embvroidered with silk organza, sequins, and raffia in a poppy and leaves pattern: red silk pleated skirt with red silk satin ribbon tie belt. Embroidery by Lesage.

omg. He stole my idea! hahahahah

When I saw a photo of this it reminded me of a pine cone. When you see it in person it’s kind of elegant. I guess YSL can make a pine cone look elegant. Sarah said maybe he got his inspiration from nature.

Short evening ensemble. Spring – Summer 1967 haute couture collection. Fringed raffia coat, neckline embroidered with brown wooden beads: ivory silk dress embroidered with wooden beads. Embroidery by Lanel

This is a really great show if you’re interested in fashion design. And the only East coast venue is the VMFA.

 

Chloe by Jaume Plensa @ the VMFA / story I made up about her

That’s me in front of Chloe modeling a top I made. Do I have a story for you.Does Chloe remind you of a movie like Avatar or Cocoon or something?  She’s an ET.

She’s a goddess from the planet Eatme. A lot of ETs from Eatme are in Richmond and they phoned home that it’s nice here so Chloe decided to come on down for her vacation. She has a giant UFO about a mile wide that she landed outside of Richmond totally flattening a lot of woods, soybeans , buildings and also blocking 95, causing a huge pile up of cars. A cop put a parking ticket on her ship but she’ll never pay it. That’s how it is with foreign dignitaries.

She got out of her ship and started walking into Richmond up the James River. She didn’t want to cause further damage, but still kept stepping on cars, so the river was easier to walk in. The armed forces sent out helicopters to try to communicate with her but she ignored them until they got too close, then she blew them away in a giant breath of air that smelled so sweet it was intoxicating to the pilots. One pilot radioed in that he wondered if she was married, and dispatch radioed back, “Repeat that Delta Niner.” It’s like all the guys fell in love with her when they inhaled her sweet air. So they sent in some tanks, but she laughed and turned them upside down.

Then they called in Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith. They’re our heroes with the most experience dealing with ETs. Tommy and Will got on top of the museum because Chloe started walking up the Boulevard and they shot her with enough tranquilizers to stop a whole heard of elephants. All the ladies wanted to kill Chloe. The scientists wanted to study her dead or alive, but the men wanted to keep her alive and talk to her when she woke up.

The VMFA was setting up a conceptual art piece in the yard by a Chinese artist, Sum Young Guy. (his real name) They had dug this 100 ‘ hole for Guy’s installation and they were awaiting the art piece’s arrival. So they decided bury Chloe up to her neck in the hole and keep her prisoner there. They tied her up like Gulliver and used a crane to lower her into the hole gently.

She looks peaceful enough asleep, doesn’t she? When she woke up there was hell to pay. She let out an ungodly shriek that people heard for 15 miles. All the ETs in town ran to the museum and dug her up. She shot laser beams out her eyeballs and destroyed the museum and a lot of priceless art. The generals were yelling at Will and Tommy because they didn’t know about the laser beam eyes.  Then she went on a rampage destroying everything.

That’s the last I heard from Richmond. I was in my car and out of town as soon as I got my picture taken with her. There were traffic jams and accidents everywhere. Chloe’s kind of flat from this side.

Here’s a pic of another giant ET head buried up to it’s neck. This one is on Easter Island.

I model my home made Mondrian outfit at an art opening

I’m standing in front of Wings by Diane Clement. She sold it! Rock on, Diane!

The invitation said to wear black and white. I was glad I have something to wear. There was a good turn out for 1st Fri. art walk downtown tonight. As I got through the crowd on Broad St. I  hoped the people can’t tell I made this top and skirt. I want them to think I spent a fortune on it. hahahahahah Dang, it would look better with high heels, but I don’t want to wear heels.That’s Diane in front of her painting “Gonna Find Myself A Hole In A Wall”. Oil and acrylic on canvas.

Diane is a self taught artist and she does get sales, which technically makes her a professional! And just goes to prove that what I say is true. It’s not necessary to spend time and money on an art education. You can do just fine as an artist without the degree. Diane is always working on marketing her work, and that’s the hardest part of the art world.