. . . neglected this blog

but you all know how it is. . . sometimes things are just so bad you don't want to even think about them, and other times, things are just so good that you can't tell about them. Somewhere in between there, I have managed to make some art. The painting above is one of the latest. See those little circular things interspersed among the scratches? I knew those depleted calculator paper rolls would be useful for something. I semi-woke up one morning and staggered down to the basement, grabbed a pencil and a pastel stick, and wildly marked all over this canvas. And I liked it, and the marks stayed.


So for my next magic trick, I'm going to try Kerr Grabowski's deconstructed screen printing. I bought her DVD and have been studying it. I bought the appropriate dyes, ordered the sodium alginate, got some printing paper, and mixed up the pastes and the dyes. I purchased one screen, which is going to be too big for what I have in mind, but I've made several smaller ones out of foam core, so I'm ready to rock and roll. Except I can't find my gloves, and I learned when I mixed that dye that gloves are a necessity. Most of what was on the DVD was about dyeing fabric, which may come in handy someday, but mostly I'm interested using the process in my painting, most likely on paper. I am so attracted to the randomness of the deconstructed screen printing process, but I think I like the regular old screen printing process, too. And mixing the pastes and dyes. . . well, I felt like a happily crazy mad scientist.


This week I celebrated my 60th birthday. Unfortunately, I wasn't in Europe with my sisters, as we had once discussed. We could have done some damage in Europe, I think, and I am certainly in the mood. Now we'll have to wait until one of them turns 60. And I win the lottery.