WHAT'S BREWING NOW?

STUFF, STEEP & STORE

INTERMEDIATE 3-D ART

silk scarf blanks, vintage & new cottons, glass jars, windfall, rusty objects, copper pennies & pipes

India Flint published a new book this last summer sharing more of her Eco-printing tips so I thought I'd give it a whirl with my 3-D girls,

just for fun.

The results were really interesting but I felt like we didn't quite do something right to get the results India shows off in her book.

But we were still pleased  :)

After bundling the fabrics and with various windfall and metals,

we steamed them,

 then set them outside for a couple of months to do their thing.

Here are the results below.

Senior Daphne Chiang bundled a vintage silk blouse and her silk scarf blank

for very pretty results.

Notice the hint of red she got in her scarf?

Very cool!

And I love the patterning that resulted on her blouse.

 Senior Bianca Tolentino achieved some very rich dark greens in her pieces.

She is working with a piece of vintage linen tablecloth, her silk blank and misc. pieces of cotton.

Lovely marks!

And Senior Kaili Hamada worked with a vintage embroidered hankie,

and her silk scarf blank.

Love the blues that came up.

My guess is that Kaili  (who loves Rit dyes)

may have dipped her scarf into a turquoise bath first before bundling.

Clever girl  :)

Fun Surprises ...

while walking the dog.

After our big rain a couple of weeks ago I found a lot of eco-prints on the sidewalks around our home.

I'm pretty sure these marks are from our ornamental pear trees.

All's I know is that they were a delightful surprise.

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.

Oops...Don't Tell

Sooooo,

 there is this clothing store in Laguna Beach that carries designer handmade clothes made from old linens and European cottons that are to die for.

Each piece is one of a kind.

They are originals from artists all over the world.

They are also really pricey, 

I mean really,

 really pricey.

So two years ago my sweet man bought me one of these linen tops 

which he paid a ginormous amount of money for.

And what did I do to this lovely light aqua blue linen top?

 I accidentally washed it in a hot water load with bleach.

Yes, bleach  :(

It was an accident!!

I must have been right braining it  :(

The only bit of color that survived was a piece of blue knit ribbing under one of the armholes

 as you can see above.

Needless to say I was beside myself with horror that I had ruined this piece,

and that my husband would find out.

So I buried it deep in my closet for several months

 and tried to figure out what to do with it.

Because it was mostly linen I knew it would take dye well,

so I thought I'd try an eco-bundling technique in turquoise Rit dye.

So this is the end result,

and I'm not sure if I like it.

It's pretty artsy-fartsy,

kind of out there.

A bit loud.

So I'll wear it when the weather warms up a bit more.

And if I don't like it,

 the good news is that with each washing the eco-prints will subside somewhat.

Or maybe I can over-dye it.

What do you all think?

What will be interesting is if my husband notices that this is the top he bought me,

 or whether he thinks this is just another of my experiments.

Ha ha

I know, 

I'm so bad.

But sometimes a girls got to do what a girls got to do.

LOL

Laarnie Barcelon - In Her Own Words

Hello everyone! 

My name is Laarnie Barcelon and I am a senior here at Whitney. 

I have been taking art classes with Mrs. Sposa for three years. 

I am currently in her Advanced 3-Dimensional class,

 and my most recent assignment was constructing the pages for my Wayfarers Wanderbook,

(a class that Ms. Sposa took with India Flint) 

 So, 

for this post, 

I was given the ability to blog about each one of the pages myself.

A little while before I had started working on all of my pages, 

Mrs. Sposa was giving away some of the old 2-D artwork that her past students had made.

 I thought it would be interesting to use some of them for my pages,

 so I had asked and had kind of moved on from there!

For this page, 

I had crosshatched and made several stitches on top of the paper where there had been rips. Afterwards, 

I stitched some fabric ruffles over top and then finally,

 I made some marks and wrote ambiguous phrases using an inky pen.

The page was then dyed/steamed in pomegranate skins and innards,

 but not the seeds.

 Inside the book's page was various pieces of strawberries,

 avocados,

 leaves,

 flowers, 

and other little things that I had found when wandering around the school. 

The page above is my signature page! 

The page's requirement had told me to write my name all  over the page...so I did.

 I wrote my name in inky pen, 

colored markers, 

and colored pencils. 

After, 

it was stuffed with strawberries, 

splattered with avocados, 

eucalyptus leaves,

 and more.

Here's a shot of it bundled up with can lids and clamps!

These are the pictures of it when it was all finished! 

There were a lot of holes and rips here and there,

 so after it had came out, 

I collaged and stitched the ripped pieces onto itself along with some neutral colored pages of sheet music, 

tissue paper,

 and dictionary pages.

I forgot to mention that the backside of the signature paper was originally a paper that had some 2-D artwork on it before I dyed it.

As for this page,

 I had forgotten to take a picture of it before we had dyed it in pomegranate! 

Oops!

 But the page was stitched on and I had applied coffee filters,

 some ripped tissues,

 and some parchment paper on top of it.

 I had intended for it to have a dandelion flower-y theme,

 but because of how the page turned out, 

you can't really tell.

As for these pages, they were made using the milk resist technique.

 I can't for the life of me remember what I had dyed them in,

 but they sure came out wonderfully~!

 On all of the pages,

 I had stitched them according to the themes I had came up with.

 The far left's theme was threads and stitches, 

the middle was splatters and spiders, 

and the far right's theme was based around how it's a page with a pocket.

 Each of the pages have some kind of pencil and pen markings, 

something stitched over top like silk, 

raffia, 

or tissue papers. 

Oh,

 and they all had some kind of coffee watercolor on them too that matched with the milk resist design.

To be honest,

 I was very lucky with how the pages above came out! 

They all came out with some of the most beautiful blue markings and wonderful leaf imprints. 

As for the paper above,

 I don't exactly know what had happened to it.

 If I remember correctly, 

it was dyed in turquoise RIT dye rather than being boiled with something organic. 

As for this paper,

 it's an old piece of sheet music that I had gotten from my music teacher Mr. England

 after we had cleared out the jazz band library.

 The page had been dyed with the insides of a pomegranate. 

I had thrown in some leaves and flowers here and there after writing all over the backside some silly gibberish with the same inky pen.

Eco Bundling & Printing

ECO-BUNDLING

BEGINNING 3-D ART

plant windfall, foodstuffs, silk, cotton, linen

Probably one of the funnest assignments of the year, 

eco-bundling and printing were enjoyed by all.

We start with a scavenger hunt around the entire perimeter of the school for windfall from flowers, bushes and trees.

Then another hunt at home for additional goodies, 

like spices and foods that might contain nature dye properties.

Junior William Kim and Antoniette Jabat brought bagfuls of exciting possibilities.

William even went to Starbucks for their used coffee grounds.

Some students chose to first pound the goodies into their silk foundations before they even started to bundle like sophomore Amy Wang.

Below, student teacher observer, Jessica K ,from Cal State U. Long Beach even joined in the fun.

Below is how Jessica stacked her finds

 on top of her fabrics.

Then the bundling began. 

The kids had many choices of fabric scraps to work with.

Silks, 

pieces of antique clothing, 

various cottons and linen tablecloths,

There were also 4 different cotton embroidery threads,

all of this thrifted from garage sales I go to each weekend.

Here are the bundles after the big steam.

This year they could have chosen a clear water bath, 

an ornamental plum, 

a blueberry, 

or a eucalyptus bath.

Believe me, it was a tough choice.

Even for me  LOL

We put them out on display for Back to School Nite.

Wish the photo had turned out better.

They were so lovely blowing in the breeze as the sun was setting.

So here are the opened bundles.

Enjoy!

Senior Sunny Kim made two different bundles.

One went into the clear water bath, the other into blueberry.

Junior Hazel Cruz chose only a clear water bath,

 but because of incorporating bobbie pins and the spice turmeric,

she got some great results.

Senior Adora Islam went into the ornamental plum bath,

 and got many cool marks from adding rusty nails.

Junior Joann Chung made 3 separate bundles.

One into clear, plum and blueberry.

Liana Chie,

 a junior,

 made two different bundles

 putting both into ornamental plum.

And here is junior William Kim,

who we saw at the top of this post.

He made two bundles

 putting one into clear and the other into blueberry.

He used a lot of turmeric and coffee grounds in his bundles.

And this very soft, gentle bundle was done by junior Amber Wu,

who put hers into plum.