GONE RUSTIC

Eco Dye Artist,

Rita Summers of Gone Rustic in Tasmania,

is producing some beautiful pieces for sale.

I found her on Pinterest and couldn't resist buying a few of her works.

I especially loved this paper bowl that she stitched together 

then embellished with a bit of crochet.

Scrumptious!

I also purchased this sweet notebook.

It looks large here on the blog but in person is only about 2" by 4".

Rita adhered the Eco paper to some type of interfacing

 then Free Motion Stitched her lovely design on both front and back.

It's so precious!

Here you can see how she zigzagged the edges together.

I looked up Tasmania on a world map.

It's an island off the Southeastern bottom edge of Australia,

right below Melbourne, Australia.

It was hard to pick a favorite,

that's why I bought 4 pieces.

But I adore this next one.

It's a journal made with several different kinds of Eco Dyed papers.

Notice how she used waxed linen to stitch it together with.

Here is one of the inside pages.

And the last piece is this note card.

The purples and blues she got are incredible here.

Below you can see how she bound it with a figure Eight Stitch.

I hope you enjoyed seeing Rita's work.

She also sells Eco Dyed clothing.

Sharing Her Story

WAYFARER'S WANDERBOOK

ADVANCED 3-D ART

eco printed and dyed papers, stitch and embellishments

This is part two of senior Laarnie Barcelon's handmade journal.

We saw the making of the papers here, 

and this is the finished product.

Laarnie calls it The Chapters of My Life,

and takes us on a very personal journey throughout the book.

But first she has bound her book between these two huge papers,

map folding them into an elongated journal foundation.

The top one she has colored with watercolor washes.

The one below was her under paper, 

the paper she put under her as she pulled her eco-dyed papers out of dye baths to keep drips off the floor.

It's also the paper she worked over when she was loading flowers & leaves between pages to dye.

I think she may have even used a hammer to pound pigments from flowers onto this paper.

So she was able to achieve some very random  and interesting marks that represented her processes.

The book is exquisite,

each page a delight for the eyes with no attention to detail spared.

She puts so much effort into each and every page she made,

filling the journal with her personal stories;

her fears,

her pain,

her will to survive and love.

Laarnie is feeling very humbled and honored to have it displayed in the principals office.

She is not afraid to share her journey with us all.

Artful Explorations

WAYFARERS WANDERBOOK

ADVANCED 3-D ART

nature's dyes on paper w/ stitch and other media

Textile artist extraordinaire India Flint has been such an inspiration to me and my students these last several years.

So much so that I traveled north two summers ago (perhaps 3?) to take a class with her.

And with her permission I am teaching her Wayfarers Wanderbook to my Advanced 3-D students.

This year it was one woman-child, the very talented and creative junior Karisma Dev.

Karisma started her explorations by stitching designs into 3 different papers below with large medium and fine yarns/threads.

Then she bundled them with eucalyptus leaves and other leaf varieties and lightly boiled them.

The leaves release their color differently on the papers and yarns as you can see below.

This is the cover of Karisma's book below.

I love that she also eco-dyed a crochet doily to embellish with.

The piece of copper is a part of her closure and she allowed a lot of her fibrous materials to hang over the edges which I find very appealing.

As you open her book you explore the natural world of color.

Karisma shared with me that she experimented with onion skins, strawberries and other fruits, coffee and tea grounds, and several flower blossoms from around the school grounds.

She was able to work off and on this book for the entire school year in her spare time.

As she was binding it she really started to get creative with lace and other fiber embellishments.

As you can see below she even brought in a twig as embellishment...

and some stamping and watercolor.

She turned one of her papers into an envelop. 

On this paper she collected flowers from around the school and used a mallet to crush the dye onto the paper with lovely results.

I find myself constantly giving Karisma goodies to incorporate into her pieces, like for instance...

this Living and Dyeing tag from fellow fiber artist Michelle Hoffee, and the funny little light bulb below that she glued onto her paper.

I always appreciate how Karisma likes to recycle things that she finds around the room that others have discarded like the copper and wires you see below.

I really hope that India has a chance to peek at your book Karisma to see how she is influencing young artists around the globe!

See ya in a couple of weeks when school starts  :)

The Ingredients for a Journal from Nature

 Junior Karisma Dev, Advanced 3-D Art student is currently creating pages for her Wayfarer's Wanderbook ala India Flint.

She has already made a wide array of pages, can't wait to see how she puts then together.

India Flint Workshop-The Wayfarer's Wanderbook - Day One

This last August I spent 3 crazy fun & intense days learning to Eco-Dye with fiber artist  from down under, India Flint.  Our host was mixed media artist Darcy Ritzau of Goleta, Ca. (a bit above Santa Barbara)  She opened her art filled home and studio to us and cooked and baked her heart out, and feed us for 3 whole days.  It was a real treat!  Thank you Darcy for your kindness and generosity.  You made the workshop even more special for all of us.

Day One

India started off by having us crumple a piece of paper to soften it for stitching.  She had us cut shapes from pieces of silks and baste them down to the paper.

Then we folded it into a booklet...

and filled between each page with all the various windfalls that she and Darcy had colleted for us.

We placed our bond booklets in a eucaliptus dye bath and let it simmer for about 40 minutes so that the vegation could release it's natural dyes into the silk/papers.

Then out they came to cool down.  There's mine below  :)

The hardest part was opening them up and pulling out the plant matter.  It's almost impossible not to slightly rip littles areas of the paper.  All 12 of us gals struggled with that.

We used various size and shaped can lids to help bind the books along with large clamps.  Even rubberbands and string.  Whatever you use acts as a resist and leaves wonderful makes on the paper as you can see on mine above.

Both sides of my paper after I got it open and cleaned of plant matter.

I really liked the stitch marks on these 2 papers.  I think one of them might have been India's sample.  Wish I could remember.

All 13 of our papers, front and backsides.

India taught us a map folding technique so that we ended up with magic acordian books.  So very cool!

I really enjoyed our next paper.  India had us loosely scribble text over the paper, all different sizes and directions with a pencil.  We origami folded this one with a slit we cut thru the center, and I tucked mine inside my 3rd paper bundle to be dyed.

Before we dyed this paper, India had us cut a very small frame, about a inch square opening, and move it over our lines ans shapes until we found an interesting area.  She had us backstitch overtop this tiny area and that became our special idenfication mark that we put onto all our papers.  I loved this and thought it a very special exercise.

For our 3rd paper of the day India gave us a packet of several different kinds of silks that we cut into shapes and stitiched down to our crumpled papers.  We did the origami slit thing again, then folded them up and inserted between each page yellow and red onion skins and strawberry tops.  Into the bubbling caldron of ornamental plum leaves it went.

And this was mine after it cooled down and I was able to open it.  Fabulous!!!

All of us taking a peek with India to exclaim how magical they were.

Front and back sides.  Notice the difference between the people who only used the yellow onions with no reds.

Well that was it for day one.  What an exciting, fabulous, learning experience it was, but I was exhausted.  So off to dinner and bed.  Several of the gals came back the next morning with more creative papers that they had made in their hotel rooms.  We will see those in my next post.