Thanksgiving with Samantha

Oh boy Ma-Ma and Pa-Pa are here to visit.

I just love it when they come.  They always bring Festus and I get to walk him.

This time I made the pumpkin pie.

I am all dressed up and ready for Thanksgiving.

I have my hair in a pony tail.  

-

Fabric Dyeing

Here is a finished shirt that I used fabric beach to discharge the color.  I cut out the stencils. using freezer paper, with my Cuttlebug using the Tim Holtz die cut.  The stencils are then ironed on.  After that I used an 80/20 solution of bleach and water and spritzed the whole shirt.

Sue Ruda, fiber artiats, taught this class for the American Sewing Guild of Ocala. 

 What a great teacher she is.

Thanks Sue for the fun day.

Part of the shirt had binder clips added to add more interest to the total design.  The neck had blue painters tape cut into scallops. After bleaching i spayed with raspberry and left it over night.  I can see just a hint of the raspberry.   I just love this shirt.

 Here are all the samples of fabric dyeing:  using shaving cream, making shibori, and resist dyeing using a mixture of dishwasher soap and bleach.

 Great vivid colors.  I even dyed lace and doilies.

This piece used large rubber stamps covered with water soluable glue.  This is a form of resist dying.  I think I love this technique best after the bleaching of the shirt.




-

Bats

Saturday we went to the Bat Festival at Lubee Bat Conservancy near Brooker Florida.  We took a very scenic route through Alachua County along tree lined roads with cows gazing in the filed.  The temperature was perfect for a convertible ride.

Here at the center, they do research on fruit and nectar bats.  Most of the bats come from 

Australia and South America. 

While I am taking pictures I get up next to a fan that has some caution tape hanging from it.  It brushed my hair.  You know what I thought was in my hair.  I was very close to the blood curdling scream that is common when one gets a bat caught in their hair.

 I know you think all these pictures are upside down but the bats really do hang this way.

 If you click on this picture to make it bigger you will see a red tongue sticking out.

Luscious fruit was hanging everywhere for these bats.

 They sort of look like kites.  Their wings even have little hooks for them to hang off of.

This structure was at the site.  I think it looks like something from Jurassic Park.  There was nothing in these pens but look how high they are.  I am sure dinosaurs are in there some where.

Look at that big bat!!  Or is that my bat from the Belfry?

Oh yes they are just hanging around.  Kind of creepy but very exciting to see.

--

Art Heart and Healing Class

I am taking a free class called Art Heart and Healing.  Here is our first week's assignment.

 Title of this work  RE-invent.

The work is done on watercolor paper using Caran de Arches watercolor crayons.

 The cogs represent the ability to invent new brain cells, new body image, new look. 

This is my first attempt at painting faces.  It was fun to learn the shading and the aspect ratio of the eyes, nose and mouth.



a