This a painting on linen. I did this for a friend that lost her husband very suddenly. I call it "A Peaceful Place." We did similar pieces in the painting class I and some other ladies had. It is a Bob Ross 'inspired' work.
This is a landscape quilt inspired by Nancy Zeeman and her landscape quilt series and books. I sure know I would rather make the picture and put together a quilt. I did not know how wavy my boarders are!! Wealso did this in our painting class and we hand dyed and painted all of the fabric. It was so much fun creating the trees and easy too. I just cut the fabric very choppy into strips that would be the right width and used a dry brush ( using acrylic paint, wiping off most of it that is on the brush before using) to make side swipes up the tree. The interesting thing about this is the artist determines the point of view by making the black swipes either smily faces or frowny. When you look down on the trees the curves on the bottom part turn down in the middle and when you are eye level the curves are pretty level and when you look up the tree the middle is turned up. We used white and gray material for the trees, thus making the white trees look closer and the grey one be pushed back. However since the big one in front is so much larger and with lots of detail it is in the front. These are only of my favorite trees, Aspen. They remind me of Colorado and Utah. I love seeing them change through the seasons.

In Grand Juntion, Colorado they have Color Weekend and so many people would go up on the Grand Mesa and look at all of the color these wonderful trees product. This was the first time I saw red quaky leaves. I did not believe it until we climbed up the side of the road and I actually touched them. It is caused by minerals in the soil.

My good friend in Colorado has this piece. I hope she enjoys it as much as I do.

I know it is not Halloween but I cam across these pictures and wanted to share them.
I won't say who this is but she was the leader in all of this fun!!

And I won't say who this is either but she had a lot of fun with her daughters. Some times it is good to act out your dark side, right?

This was our ring-a-round the rosie ghosts. I think they had fun too. A lot of people thought they were neat and took pictures of their kids by them. I think that is Bob and Alisa on the otherside. They dressed up more respectable than others. It was a lot of fun and the father person had to get in and help everyone. This does not happen when certain people are not here.

These are new paperweights I made yesterday and today. This one is done with my hand 'dyed' silk fabric. I wish it was a little clearer but it shows up ok. This pic is from a catologe and is a framed picture, thus the squared off image. I like it a lot. I used Diamond Glaze, a glue, sealer, etc. on all of my paperweights and love it. I put a thin coat on the back of the paperweight and laid the pic on it and smoothed it out. It dries clear and is perfect for paper.

This is another silk hand dyed fabric and the diamond glaze was neat because it makes the fabric look wet and more brilliant. I did run into some problems with getting everything to stick together 100% and that leaves shiny spots. I wraped the edge with copper foil tape and I am using copper wire wrap to create a hanger.

Finally I got my pictures so I can put them in here. Emily thanks so much. Ok so this is a paperweight and some glass bubbles that have my newest polymer clay design on them. I made these for my son-in-law. These are called kalidascope designs. As you can see here the beginnings of the clay cane. This stuff is so exciting. There are so many things you can do with it. I have also made some beads with the same cane. I have tried this before and it did not turn out as well as this one did. The only thing I would do different is not have the colors on the outside and in the corners. It is ok but it makes the centers very predictable and overpowering with a flower motif.

This is the same as the first one but you can see what I mean by the center red flowery thing.

More Stuff

So there is a web site that I found called 'create a pendent' with a guy named Mathew Nix. He has some nice stuff and I figure I can learn some things from him so I bought a few of his things. I was very interested in his polymer clay beads. So I got out my books and I have been making some beads that I will do some of his wire wrapping and herring bone wrap.

Here are a few of them. I really like the color and swirl in the purple and gold one. And the orange and black ones are from my monarch butterfly cane. Then I made a kalidascope cane and had fun with it.

Rosalie Dace check her out

Oh what an exciting day already! It is a long story that I will not tell. I will just say that I am going to take an art quilting class this June - 5 days long. If I knew how to put her website in I would so you really should goggle rosaliedace. Oh my I love her work and I can learn so much from her that will help me in what ever I am doing, like my collage, art quilting, even my glass work!

Also I found a new and better way (maybe) to get the same effect as my paperweights. I was on the Esty site (Esty.com is a market place for artists to display their work) I found a lady that makes wonderful charm braclets and such with small clear oval thingies. At first I thought she might make them herself. Well I goggled clear cabachons and got Rubber Nation. They sell some rubber stamp and a whole lot of beads and related stuff. They have just what I wanted! They are acrylic and not glass, which I don't like but they look like they work. So now I get some housework done so I can go play with my glass and polymer clay today.

Why?

This is one piece of cloth that I was trying to get bright colors. The movement is done by using salt on it while the paint is still wet. I will do something with this someday and it just might be that I frame it as is. I love the unpredictability of where the color is going to go and what it will do when it reaches the other colors.

Well Em has been helping me learn all of this stuff for blogging and facebook, etc. I keep making mistakes and wonder why I can not do certain things. Oh well.

The reason I choose Dying to Paint for some name or something on my blog is because dying and painting fabric is one of my past time. I thought I would pull of a few pics of a few pieces. My problem is I love to dye it but I do not like to quilt it and so I try to find other ways to use it.

I love to paint/dye silk scarves too. In fact silk make a wonderful canvas for these paints, the colors are more brilliant and there is a sparkle on the cloth too.

See the cube and triangle, mirror thing. I think that is going to be a person.

this is one of my first paperweights

I made this for Alisa from a birthday card

this is mostly my new treasures. the stacked 'cups' are wonderful colors.They are glass tea light holders

can you spot the rooster, the very tall bunny, brass candle stick, the silver gravy boat.

Something to say about my life

So this is brand new to me. I keep telling my daughter I have nothing to write about but I think I will give this a try because of the fun art things I do. For instance, yesterday we went thrift store sailing and I made a haug at the Goodwill. I am collecting stuff to do 3D collage work or assembly work, as it is called. I will take some pictures and post them. I love my new stuff and it cost me $20 total. Now that is against my morals to pay good money for junk but I haven't found a way to get it out of peoples trash without being attacked by thier dog or members of their family. Well I have not actually gone dumster diving yet. But I just know there are sooo many things people throw away and I want them. The junk not the people. I have a hard time getting people to understand that I want broken stuff. Actually I want anything that is metal, wood, glass, fiber,etc that does not breath, rot, or attack. There, now that isn't so hard is it. My great joys at the present time are: clear glass paperweights (I got a bunch at the dollar store) and solder and glass. This will probably lead me into stained glass art but for now I am just trying to learn how to handle glass: cut it, grind it, not get cut, etc. I do love having the tools to do projects and glass does require some special tools, like a grinder, cutter, nippers, etc. And I am learning that solder is very hot and so are the tips to wood burning tools. I found that if I want to solder inside, I have to have a ventalation system to tak the fumes away. I bought a little fume extractor and I hope it is enough. This all started because I got a fun little book for Christmas called: Pretty Little Things by Sally Jean Alexander. Lots of fun! So now I will take pictures.