WILD - Part II

ECO-DYED BANNERS

BEGINNING 3-D ART

The opening of the banners was a joyful event for everyone except one,

English teacher Delaina Park hee hee

If you remember from a previous post,

Ms. Park is taking the class during her conference period.

This is her second class she's taken from me.

And in both she has been an A+ student,

actually raising the bar for the kids 

as I've heard them mumbling   LOL

They all adore her because she takes the time to go around the room 

and exclaim over every student's creations,

making them feel wonderful.

And they also love that she is so funny and squeamish.

She donned gloves for the event.

I believe she saw a tiny little bug crawling thru her bundle 

and came completely unglued  LOL

It was so funny I had to grab my camera.

Thank you Deliana for being such a good sport here.

xoxoxox

Oh my,

look at these results!!

Remarkable colors,

so very rich in organic design.

Now here they are 

heat set 

then washed, 

then heat set again.

The long pieces of silk take the dyes better than the cottons.

And without the mordanting,

the cottons won't hold the color at at.

We will see these beauties again in Part III 

as the students begin to sew their banners together.

The reds and yellows came from recycled tye-dye strings from a previous unit

that I saved to wrap their bundles with.

ECO-DYEING GONE WILD - PART I

ECO-DYE BANNERS

BEGINNING 3-D ART

thrifted linens, cottons and silks w/ windfall & edibles

After these beginners chose all their thrifted fabrics for their banners,

a bit of soy milk mordant was in order.

Only oops,

I forgot it was a Friday,

and that the fabrics would have to sit over the weekend;

2 full warm days unrefrigerated.

So when the kids got back on Monday there was CHEESEY GOODNESS.

LOL

Poor senior Hapshiba Kwon was trying to keep herself from gagging,

it was so darn disgusting.

And man oh man,

 did the room stink!!!

They all had to squeeze out the excess soy before beginning the dye process.

Needless to say the sinks and trashcans looked brutal after they were done.

Good thing stuff like this doesn't bother me,

toughens you right up  :)

The students were required to bring in windfall from home and neighbors houses.

I also encouraged them to ransack their mother's pantry for spices.

And many of them brought in fruits and vegetables as well.

There were at least 15 different vintage fabrics to choose from along with

long pieces of silk in various forms;

raw, china, and other mixes.

I also put out white and off-white perle cottons

in size 12,

that they stuck in their bundles so they would dye as well;

 later on they would be able to sew with string that matched.

I also liked that they stopped off at Starbucks for coffee grounds,

 and thought to bring in various teas as well.

I was really impressed with the amount of effort these kids put into their collections.

Most of the students made only one bundle,

stacking it tall with many layers of fabrics & dyestuff's.

But I told the kids they could make as many bundles as they wanted.

A couple made two.

Then they had to decide which brew they wanted me to simmer their bundles in.

Their choices were ornamental plum (dark maroon)

windfall that had broken off up at the cabin during a big wind storm.

Or perhaps the blueberry dye bath from the grocery store (dark blue/purples),

or maybe the Eucalyptus (reddish browns) that I always make

 from the windfall around my classroom.

Of course senior Elias Rodriquez

is limiting his choices to mostly brownish black dyestuff's

 cuz that's how he likes to roll  :)

I had them roll their bundles over copper piping 

or pieces of wood I collected in the forest.

Several of them brought in foodstuffs

that dyed up beautifully as you will see tomorrow in Part II.

And here we have all the bundles after about two hours of slowly simmering

in their chosen dye bath.

The ones in the foreground were put in the Eucalyptus,

 the mid section bundles went into the blueberries, 

and the ones in the far background were brewed up in Ornament Plum.

The room smelt heavenly of cinnamon and coffee,

and Vicks Vapo Rub (the Eucalyptus).

I didn't allow the kids to open the bundles until two weeks had past

to make sure that MAGIC happened.

FIRST QUARTER FINAL

MATTING

ADVANCED 2-D ART

mat board & mat knife

For seniors Elias Rodriquez and Jonathan Hsu,

choosing either their Pointillism or Prismacolor original to mat up, 

was their final for the quarter.

They both have cut two previous mats for me in the Intermediate class

last year,

but it's still a challenging task. 

And not only did they need to cut a mat, but they were required to embellish the mat

in some way to flow visually with their art piece.

Above we see Elias touching up his Prismacolor

by adding more highlights to it,

to balance with the white pen drawings he did on the mat.

Both works turned out phenomenally,

and I'm so very proud to show them off.

Elias Rodriquez

Jonathan Hsu

Soap

FELTED SOAP SCRUBS

7TH GRADE ART WHEEL 2015-2016 1ST QUARTER

bar soap and dyed wool roving

Aren't these stunning??

My sweet little 7th graders created some dazzling soap scrubs.

From top to bottom, right to left are:

James Lara

Glenna Mabilangan

Rawnie Singh

Emma Phungraksakiat

Andrea Sanchez

Great work young ones!!!

A SNEAK PREVIEW...

TYE-DYE CLOTHS FOR QUILTED JOURNALS

BEGINNING 3-D ART

liquid Rit dye on cotton

of the pieces of tye-dye that my beginners made for the foundation 

of their Quilted Journals that are coming up in 3rd Quarter.

One will be used for the front/back and the other for the inside.

Junior Helen Park created these beauties to be used together,

and English teacher Deliana Park achieved these bold colorways 

that are gorgeous next to each other.

But it was 8th grader Carl Estrella's cloths that I was really drawn to.

Stay tuned to see how these turn out after they quilt them into a journal  :)

BRINGING IT BACK TO LIFE

Tah Dah!!!

Finally got this wheel working.

I posted about it here, 

and since then my husband has cleaned, oiled and glued it back into working order.

So it was up to me to get it spinning again.

But first I did a bit of research about the origins of this wheel.

I had lots of help from Karen MacEwan 

who heads the  Antique Wheel Forum on ravelry.com,

a wonderful resource for all kinds of fibery information.

The wheel dates back to the 1840's and is Scandinavian in origin,

probably having been brought over to the U.S. from Sweden.  

A lot of these wheels are turning up in the Northern U.S.

 where many of the Scandinavian peoples settled when coming to the New World.

Over this Thanksgiving Holiday,

 I was able to take some time and mess with it.

Karen told me to string my wheel in a figure eight around the double drive band,

and also how to set the tension.

It worked like a charm.

Can't wait to bring it to school and have my students try it out.

RASCALLY RABBITS

Nope,

it's not a rabbit,

or a bird,

but a baby chipmunk we think.

Or maybe a squirrel.

All this wildlife is new for us.

My neighbor up at the cabin is patiently teaching us  :)

We've seen it thru the windows climbing up and under our jeep engine

to keep warm,

 we're guessing.

Or maybe there are some delicious wires it's chewing on,

 hopefully not.

What I do know is that this little one is very hungry.

He's eating up all the birdseed both on the railing and from the hanging feeder.

So I bought a new seed that has fruits and nuts in it to keep him around a while longer.

He/she? loves it!

IT'S SNOW

Very rarely do we get snow at the 5000 foot level in Crestline,

but on Thanksgiving night,

 down it came.

So that Friday nite when my son and I got there

 it still hadn't melted completely away yet.

This is what we saw Saturday morning when we woke up.

It was like a bed of lace.

So very delicate and lovely.

But by late afternoon when we left it was almost gone.

They say there is more coming because of the El Ninos this year.

Hope so,

can't wait!!

AN EXCELLENT ADVENTURE

A couple of weekends ago in Torrance, Ca. 

was the 

Southern California Weavers & Hand Spinning Guild's Annual Show,

and since I missed last year's show,

 I thought I might have to check it out and see if there was anything new.

One of my favorite booths was Wooly Walkers.

Una (owner) uses hand spun yarns and hand felted pieces

 to create beautiful punch rugs with embroidered areas.

This piece is her booth banner which is to die for.

One of these days when I am rich  LOL

I'd love to commission her make me an ARTISUN banner.

I just love how she uses both felt, yarn and other goodies in these works.

Another booth that grabbed me 

was the hand made wooden spinning and weaving tools.

I love products that are lovingly crafted from beautiful hardwoods.

And below,

this gal was using resins to create tiny leaves and flowers to embellish with.

I bought a sweet little set and gave them to senior Haphiba Kwon

for excellence in hand stitching on her Felt Basics piece

that I posted a couple of days ago.

She also was re-purposing vintage finds into necklaces and pins.

I might have both one of those. 

and maybe a few yards of antique trim as well. hee hee

And then I can't go to this show

 without stopping to say hello to my dear friend and mentor

 Lori Lawson of Capistrano Fiber Fame.

Lori was decked out in one of her glorious silk wraps that she had eco-printed.

And check out those adorable kitties in her basket.

Of course I couldn't leave without taking one home.

His name is Milo,

and the yarn is hand spun and hand knit by Lori.

Then off we went to the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro.

Did I mention that I dragged my husband along for the ride?

He is such a good sport 

and would follow me thru the gates of hell

 if that was where I wanted to go  LOL

to a huge warehouse called CRAFTED.

One of my favorite things here was a banner that hung from the ceiling of the warehouse.

It was made entirely from recycled blue jeans into this large fish.

Pretty darn cool, 

right?

But it was Peggy Zask's Gallery space that stopped me dead in my tracks.

She is sculpting horses from a variety of found objects,

and using clay as her base foundation.

I must have spent at least 45 minutes with her,

chatting and trying to pick out my favorite piece.

This is the incredible beauty I settled on.

I just adore everything about it and have it sitting on my desk at school.

 It has inspired me to create a new assignment for my 3-D students.

What do you think???

LET'S WRAP IT UP

PORCELAIN SLAB WRAPS

CERAMICS II

porcelain clay, glazes & oxides

This is the first assignment of the year for my second year clay students.

And it's also their first time to work with porcelain clay.

The assignment is used as a review for slab construction,

and surface design.

And the kids ended up loving the porcelain.

Sadly,

it's twice as expensive as the regular clay.

Only two pieces were required but senior Celeste Zambrano made three.

Notice how fluid each piece is.

They had some choices about how to finish them off.

I wanted glaze on the inside of all.

I also wanted oxide staining on the outside to highlight all the surface stamping.

Some then chose to glaze over the oxides, 

some didn't.

These next two cuties belong to senior Klyne Madayag.

She has used transparent glaze on both the inside and out with cobalt oxide staining.

This beauty was made by senior Sandhya Raghvan.

Sorry it's a bit blurry Sandhya.

I really like how our Black glaze contrasts with the Rutile oxide.

This gorgeous piece was done by senior Efrain Quintero.

Again,

we see how the Black compliments the Red Iron Oxide.

Love , love, love how senior Sitara Puliyanda 

used multiple oxides on the piece on the left.

As did senior Eryn Burnett on her middle piece above.

Eryn also experimented with a box shape along with her cylinders

 for extra credit.

These are all so sweet.

A great start for the new school year!