Month: February 2008

orange, pink, rhinos

February 7, 2008

I’m having my usual spring fidgets. I am bored with the transfer paints and I wish I didn’t still have half of them still to use up. I am sick of leaves, and discreet colors. I am waking up earlier and earlier, probably part of the whole spring-is-here and the-sap-is-running thing going on (even though it is still dark when I wake up, and the ground is still frozen and really? the sap hasn’t started yet).

I find myself obsessed with pink and orange, and rhinoceroseses (rhinocerii?) to the extent that I have ordered this jacket from Landsend, in brilliant pink with orange trim. And then I was trolling through wallymart trying to find pink and orange shirts for exercising. I found some pink, and some orange, but nothing with both. So I bought some tank tops to layer over short sleeved shirts. The orange isn’t orange enough, but they’ll do for now. Until I can overdye  them. I think the colors are making people’s eyes hurt.

300pxdrer_rhino_full

Did I mention the Rhinos? I’ve been working on transfer pen versions of Mr Durer’s rhino, and some others, so I can transfer them to the new shirts. Possibly to the new jacket as well. And rhinestones.  They have to sparkle. Leading me to contemplate new terms for them…. rhinstonoceros? rhinocerostone?

I can’t begin to tell you how amused I am with myself for thinking of sparkly pink and orange rhinos.

Pink_rhino

Week 5 velvet leaf

February 4, 2008


Week 5 velvet leaf
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I found a pile of ripped strips of black white a gray cottons leftover from December’s postcards, and I realized I missed making them.  I don’t like polyester much, except for exercise clothes (I have a separate rant for that). The transfer paint is getting boring, but I swore I’d use it up. I have a lot to go to use it up….

But I realized I could still use old fabrics, and old techniques, as well as the current obsession focus. So I have one of my beloved patchy backgrounds, with a satin and velvet leaf heavily embroidered into it. Hah.

In other news, I am beat. I did the Y thing this morning, then went to the barn and cleaned stalls, carried water buckets and pushed around (enormous) loads of sawdust across treacherous ice. Then the kids had climbing class, and I belayed children to keep them from falling out of the sky. At the end, I got a chance to try climbing again. I addressed myself to a more difficult wall, and fell off once (What a RUSH – in a Really Bad Way) and beat a little higher. I didn’t make the top, but I did respectably. And then I made this postcard when I got home.

Told you I was good for it.

good night Gracie.

new experiences

February 3, 2008

I have accomplished nothing today – except for one huge milestone/millstone that has been hovering over my head for (…counts quickly…) sixteen months.

I finally woke up my Etsy Shop.

It looks pretty good too, if I do say so myself.

But having made the banner, and the avatar (the little tiny crow picture) and listed two items which required
cropping and resizing a bunch of pictures and two different computers, I’m knackered, and done. And there are no transfer paint experiments, and no thing of the week. I’ll have to do it tomorrow. But you will all know…

Feb 1

February 1, 2008


Feb 1
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

So – good start, needs work.

I am thinking that I need to compose the piece as a whole page, stitcking things down with tape or something, and making sure the fit is reasonable and the over lap is negligible. THat means using big paper, or the floor.

Also, I need some way to photograph things larger than 5″x7″ – the bulletin board/large desk light set-up worked well for a year of postcards, but needs emptying of culch before it will work for stuff up to about 15×24″. This is on the ironing board, and that is where the missing corner has gone. A larger flat space for ironing would be nice. Maybe clear floor space would work for both of these ends.