Tag: Tools

Fibery stuff this week

PiaFelting

Pincushion progress:

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First one felted and stitched up ready to fill, but I want to add icord loops or something to have the option of hanging them from a hook. (if I can find a suitable location away from cat paws) I decided to try out the dye with regular laundry detergent, twice. Original yarn included in the photo. It turned out rather larger than I expected after my blanket adventure, but I liked the fabric the way it was, so didn’t want to give it another go at a higher temp.

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Second one felted and ready to be stitched. Yarn is dyed with madder exhaust and Dyer’s Chamomile. Also washed with the clothes and detergent.

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Third one – yarn chosen but the shape hasn’t presented itself to me yet. Possibly a cube. Originally all three were going to be like the first, but then the second wanted to be different and I obliged. Apparently my inner self does not want to be classy, and for now I’m listening – as long as it’s actually saying something, fine! Even if it means the house will look like a cirkus… Skeins are dyed with Dyer’s Chamomile and Weld (the lighter one).

Suffolk preparation started:

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I’ve decided to just finger pick everything to get rid of the tiny bits of vegetable matter, then loosely blend on hand cards, which I hate but really doesn’t take such a long time as I imagined. To be spun into yarn for the tapestry testing, and when I’m done I have a huge box of Dorset that I’ve plant dyed which needs the same treatment. I thought I said something about not production spinning?!

Sample loom 1 done:

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loom1

Seems to be working fairly well, I’ll be testing various widths of warp, how many meters of yarn go into xx cm of weaving etc. I tried at first without nails, just wrapping around, but I think it will work better with nails on the front. Possibly because the frame is so small, pulling the warp up from the back really makes it very taut. As well as being fiddly to adjust the gaps.
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danishUgens fiberprojekter

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Nålepuder af plantefarvet garn undervejs: Første er klar til at blive fyldt, og så skal jeg lige have lavet en løkke i toppen til at hænge den op, inden jeg kan sy den sidste kant. Garnet er farvet med vaid.

Nr. 2 er filtet og klar til at blive syet sammen (kraprod og gåseurt), den sidste er der fundet garn frem til (gåseurt og vau). Jeg har vasket det sammen med tøjet og almindeligt vaskepulver, noget plantefarve kan ikke lide den behandling, men jeg ville lige prøve at se hvordan disse, normalt ret farveægte typer holdt sig.

Jeg er endelig gÃ¥et i gang med den sidste klargøring af min Suffolk ham som jeg gik og sjatfarvede i sommer. Det bliver pillet fra hinanden med fingrene for at blive fri for plantefnuller og hÃ¥ndkartet løseligt (hvilket jeg er herredÃ¥rlig til, men det gÃ¥r faktisk hurtigere end antaget.) Ja, og sÃ¥ er der naturligvis den kæmpe kasse Dorset jeg har plantefarvet, som skal samme vej…

Og så har jeg lavet en miniature væveramme til at lave lidt garn- og tekniktest på.

Got a light?

PiaChit Chat

eclipse

What do you use for studio/work light, when daylight isn’t enough?

It’s not that it matters greatly, if I put my mind in “flexible” I can knit, spin, read, doodle, play work play on the computer and one day, when perhaps the outside gets more comfortable, work in the garden or ride horses. But still, I find myself some days wishing I could paint when I had planned to do so.

I’m really finicky with lighting temperatures. Not too cold and blue and definitely not your typical cosy yellow everyday lamps. It’s especially bad now with the new energy saving bulbs, which are of course a good thing, just not for colourwork.

Over the window of my office I have a “biolux” fluorescent tube which emulates daylight, I use it in winter to make days longer and brighter, and it’s not directly made for artwork, but it’s not bad. 36W/6500 K (I think it’s this one). The thing is, my office is not big enough for painting, especially since my cats are determined to share the table. Also when it rains, best place to shake your muddy paws, drop by for a bit of love and perhaps a dry lap for transferring moisture before they head back out. And any obstacles are to be climbed on, basically.  Right behind me on the floor 1 large dog for tripping over (used to be 2). I have no door…. See where that’s going?

So, obviously a 120 cm tube like that with a standard, open fixture isn’t very pretty in the middle of a living room ceiling, although it might help a bit. So, do I care? Does anyone have better suggestions? Or do you just work in the dark/good weather?

Golden Open

PiaPainting

Yesterday I decided to play with my small test tubes of the new(ish?) Golden Open acrylics. Yes, play 😉 and picking some new to me colours as well, india yellow and sap green, with white and ultramarine. I’ve been feeling that I sometimes want to get away from the very bright carnival colours without going brown and grey, you know?

The Open series are supposed to dry slower than regular acrylic paint, but without the smell of the oil and turpentine. As well as staying wet on the palette even overnight.

And they do take their time drying. But it seems that they get sticky with the brush just as fast as the others, or nearly so, and then just stay that way – forever. In fact one canvas done with medium is still slightly sticky this morning. What I was looking to get was a fairly long blending time on the canvas with no brush tracks. Copious amounts of medium helped a bit, but also worked as a glaze. I did a couple of washes with and one “abstract” background without. Just randonly picking up paint, apply, pick up more and try to blend the two areas.

rubbish

So I wondered if anyone out there had another or the same experience? I don’t mind the longer waiting time as long as I get the longer working time, but one without the other seems pointless. Or is it the no skinning and palette useability that is the actual deal? The pamphlet says “can be reconstituted for a period of time (an hour) once set, using water, fresh paint or mediums.”

I’m looking for something to replace my W&N Galeria when they run out or get to sluggish and it seems Golden is all the rage these days. I already have a hard time squeezing them out of the bottles compared to the couple of newer tubes I have, and thought perhaps that’s why I was experiencing stickyness. The sample Golden Fluids I have do the same though.

Maybe I’m just working too big a surface. (50×50 cm in this case) Doodling away in one small corner works very well if you have your painting all planned, but not if you’re just going to wave your arms a bit and see what happens. Remember, I’m trying to learn to be intuitive about it. Absolutely almost non-thinking. Sometimes I think you have to visit all the extremes to find your middle ground?

So today I’ll try fewer colours in the first round wave, when it begins to get sticky I’ll go at it with fresh paint and water (I thought I was doing that yesterday, but….) Maybe I use too thin layers. Will have to test a thick coat in one corner. (having only those very small tubes)

No more excuses

PiaChit Chat

I have:

Put up a whole bunch of nails around the house to keep my umpteen unfinished masterpieces away from cat claws.

Assembled a pile of canvasses all ready to go in various sizes. Having the frames sitting around in the hayloft for years was obviously one of those times when hoarding is quite ok! And enough canvas for about 30 pictures.

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Ready, steady, go!

Well, apart from the annoying realization that I can no longer use the staple gun. My hands are too sore and weak to press it all the way in, leaving the tacks to fall out completely or sticking out of the board halfway. I had to call in an assistant after doing just one, and a very poor job of it. 🙁 I don’t know if it’s just because I clipped the hind hoofs of my Arabian the day before, also very hard on the hands when you’re an amateur (and have really small hands to a very large tool). Or if I need to switch to pre-framed $$$ canvas or paper or boards in the future. Didn’t make it any easier that I’d decided to try gallery mounting with the tacks at the back, rather than along the edges like I used to do. Tricky!

I also found some photos of some of my first paintings, acrylic on very large watercolour paper 50×75 cm. Not a complete collection unfortunately, and I suppose I should scan these. You might say I ought to use that until I improve my skills, but I do like canvas. And well, I have the canvas but no paper…. Also you can keep painting over canvasses more times! 😉

k
we actually had this in the dining room for years. When we had one… 100×150 cm or something painted on an old bedsheet.

Funny thing is: I definitely think my taste has improved as well as my skill in the years not painting – INSIDE MY HEAD. This means I have a lot more pressure now, because obviously my muscle skill hasn’t improved one bit in the meantime, but I know I won’t be happy with what I did then. Some of the subject matter yes – but not the execution. There’s maybe I few that I still like and some I’d just as soon paint right over.

It’s not that I have a lack of projects at the moment, I do have a list of things I want to work on, so I don’t technically need a stream of new ideas coming in right now, that are not related to those projects (but if they come, they will be registered of course, can’t stop the flow).

But I still have trouble with the intuitive, playful aspect, just “closing down logic and see what my hand wants to do with a brush”. And I think that is possibly what it preventing me from aquiring the “skill” I feel I need or the ability to be happy with what I produce here and now. My brain really, really wants to know where we’re going before we even take the first step. (and keeps asking “are we there yet?”)

But I’ll keep leaning into it. Today however I have a visitor. Who is probably going to ask: “Why can’t you paint one picture at a time?”

donkeyboy
I have absolutely no idea what I had in mind when I did this decades ago. But Birdie wanted to know how I intended to use my watercolour paper.

danish

Ikke flere undskyldninger

SÃ¥ er der banket søm i alle ledige vægge for at beskytte mine halvfærdige skilderier fra kattene. Jeg har samlet en masse lærreder, nogen gange er det en fordel IKKE at have oprydningsmani, for der lÃ¥ jo lige en hel stak rammer pÃ¥ høloftet og bare ventede pÃ¥ jeg gik i gang igen! Der er jo for en formue i materialer… Ellers kunne man jo male pÃ¥ kraftigt papir, men sÃ¥dan noget har jeg faktisk ikke pÃ¥ lager i stor størrelse.

Desværre var mine hænder for ømme og svage til at bruge clipsemaskinen. Håber det kun er fordi jeg klippede hove på den ene hest i går, for jeg var nødt til at bede om hjælp efter bare 1 lærred, som i øvrigt ligner noget der er løgn på bagsiden.

Jeg fandt ogsÃ¥ en stak fotos af mine første malerier (under en oprydningsrunde 😉 ), desværre ikke alle. Jeg har helt klart ændret smag i mellemtiden og forventer nok ogsÃ¥ en noget bedre kvalitet i udførelsen, hvilket jo er tÃ¥beligt, for mine hænder har jo ikke udviklet deres kunnen undervejs.

Jeg har stadig lidt svært ved at give slip og bare lege billeder frem, og det er muligvis derfor jeg ikke er tilfreds med det jeg producerer. Min hjerne vil åh så gerne vide, hvad vi skal frem til på forhånd. Men jeg bliver ved med at skubbe lidt til muren og fjerne en sten hist og pist, på et eller andet tidspunkt braser den vel sammen.

A good day to ply!

PiaPÃ¥ dansk

It’s nasty out there I tell you, mean and nasty! Wind directly from Siberia – I didn’t even stop to take extra pix for you to describe the misery just right, here’s my oversize hamsters coming in for breakfast.

snow

I’m force feeding the woodstove as fast as I can and moved the wheel over to ply that braid I spun the other day. Plus some odd singles I had sitting around, purpose forgotten.

First I needed to make an extra lazy kate however, for my weaving bobbins converted for spinning, since their center diameter is too small for my regular kate. Good thing we have this gizmo, also used for making all the holes in my blending hackle.

boreFirst I thought it had frozen to death, but it sped up as I let it run a bit. Voila, one piece of wood and some nails, good enough to go. Yes, I’ll make a base for it, so I won’t have to clamp it to the table, but never mind that now. We also don’t need to mention that I’m officially too old to read a rusty drill in a dark garage without my glasses, so the holes are too big… I can find another piece of wood I’m sure. It still worked with wobbly nails and no clamps, at least for transferring the singles onto a proper bobbin on the wheel.

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Bottom of the board with indents for nail heads and all

kate2The one on the right was lovely as fiber and then I did a really poor job of spinning it. Don’t like it much as plied yarn either, but I guess sometimes that’s the way of it.

All done and washed. The Rambouillet is incredibly elastic and squishy, I don’t know if the former is a good thing in yarn, but I love the feel of stretching and bouncing it. I’ll spin the other braid in the same way.

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And well, it was also a good day to dye, as I had enough to try a bit of snow dyeing. More on that later!

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Guess who doesn’t care about the weather…

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Tvindevejr

Ja, jeg behøver jo ikke fortælle jer danskere hvordan vejret har været de sidste par dage, så jeg har bare tvangsfodret brændeovnen og ellers flyttet rokken tilpas tæt på, så jeg kunne få tvundet det jeg spandt forleden.

Jeg vidste jeg havde nogen 3 mm tykke søm, der lige passede i de små, billige spoler, men havde overvurderet min egen evne til at gætte diameteren på boret; så det blev lidt vakkelvorent, da jeg lige hurtigt ville lave en spoleholder. Men jeg fik da flyttet garnet over!

Singlen til højre er jeg meget skuffet over i forhold til fibrene, og jeg er ikke blevet gladere efter tvinding, men sådan kan det jo gå. Jeg kan vel bruge det til et eller andet en dag, måske bare bamsefyld.

Rambouillet garnet er helt utroligt elastisk, jeg ved egentlig ikke om det er en god ting, men jeg kan godt lide følelsen, så jeg regner med at spinde den anden fletning på samme måde.