Rust & Batik

Among a number of pieces of fabric that I finished off today were two that were originally rusted and then batiked. I am especially fond of the lower piece, which was overpainted with tannin. I love those earthy colors, also the globular shapes that the wax made.

I've been reading The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp -- many artists are reading it now, in fact I heard about on one of the blogs I follow -- and she starts out talking about the necessity of doing some kind of daily ritual to bring oneself to the studio, wherever and whatever that might be. So what I have begun towards this end is to do one or two pages in my sketchbook or collage journal every morning, before I do anything else, art-wise. This is a really good exercise for me, because I've not been doing sketchbooks or collage journals, even though I've wanted to for a long time. I haven't done them until now because I would always judge my work against what other artists do. And mine never seemed to measure up. I also wanted them to be perfect, finished artworks in themselves.

But now I'm doing it just for the pleasure of putting together magazine pictures, inspiring words, paper I've stamped, fabric scraps, textured stuff, bits of dyed newsprint from under stuff I've dyed or painted, and whatever else I can find. Without judgement. I do have an ulterior motive, though, and that is to use these pages as inspiration for future textiles and art quilts. But mostly it's for the exercise of priming the pump on a daily basis.

Another practice I'm doing daily, now, is posting a photo on my new(est) blog, Textural Images. These are images I'm shooting and manipulating in Photoshop, turning substance into texture and color. If you haven't checked it out, please do. I'm really having a lot of fun with it. And I'm generating some very interesting and inspiring images that I want to translate into or onto fabric. In fact, many of the images are of fabrics that I've woven, dyed, discharged or printed, and by manipulating the images I'm creating a whole new level of inspiration for further and future work. Actually, the permutations are virtually endless so I've already got a lot of catching up to do, if I intend to do textile work based on the images!