Energy Deficit

I'm battling fatigue which tends to make me cranky, enough so that when the seven month old Janome Platinum Jem refused to sew I seriously thought about tossing it into the trash can. The Redlands Sewing Center is about
1.5 hours from here and that of course made the situation even larger than it needed to be. In the yellow pages I discovered only two repair shops in the entire area, one of them isn't in the most desirable of locations. Happily, the second one isn't too far away and I was informed that if I got the machine in on Wednesday the repair guy was in their shop on Thursday so I could probably have my machine back on Friday. "I'll bet," I thought. Often I'm surprised when things turn out; the machine is back home after being reset to factory settings. I'm terrified to try it, what if it doesn't work? In the mood I'm in I wouldn't be able to handle it. Energy deficit due to insomnia, enough said.

I did however whip up two more batches of paper pulp with an additive that is supposed to help the paper become acid free. I forgot to mention that before. Two examples of some of the fragments and small sheets of paper that I made are below. The scans seem to make the paper look like one sheet rather than a small embossed fragment on top of a sheet of paper. I haven't adhered them together yet simply because I'm still wondering if I like them well enough. To achieve the blue tone on second one I used chalk pastels. I don't make delicate paper to write on, why bother when one can purchase beautiful papers. The paper I make is often chunky, highly textured, or chock full of things that appeal to me like herbs, dried flowers or whatever is on my work bench such as onion skins on their way to the compost pile. I think that the paper made better use of them.


The other thing that I tried was to use hand sanitizer, Purell, to transfer a photo I shot in Arles, France in 1997. This particular print was too dark. The details of the house in the background weren't evident. I do like the sunflowers so I tried the transfer on a sheet of handmade paper
I made years ago. Failed paper, failed print, what did I have to lose? I have a feeling that this process invented by Glenda Bailey is something I will continue to play with. I'm impressed with how easy it is to do. (Note: Glenda continues to add new information about the technique so scroll through her blog to the first entry.)


Quote: Insomnia is a gross feeder. It will nourish itself on any kind of thinking, including thinking about not thinking. Clifton Fadimen

Disintegrating.

Rain! The bundle I put outdoors on Sat. is receiving a nice soaking. I wondered what would happen to some of the photos I included and if the one in this photo is any indication there might not be any images left on May. 1. No wonder photo transfers sometimes work with just water! I tossed some some text pages from the French book onto the rusted cookie sheet and then placed a jar on them to flatten them. Love the circle imprint.

I was able to get out into the garage again today even though it was freezing! Where did this cold weather come from? A couple more batches of pulp including some for some paper casting I'm trying using molds I made yesterday when I glued some elements on mat board. So far I'm not impressed.

Quote: Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. Will Rogers

Handmade Paper

Another piece of two handmade papers fused together. This piece fused a little better than the one in the next post did. The bottom layer is rusted paper and the top layer started out life as a brown paper bag; when the sheet was dry an abstract of acrylic paints was applied.

Question: is anyone having a hard time getting daily updates now that blogarithm has changed? I love getting blog updates daily so that I could quickly go to them. Is there another service like that? The one that took over from blogarithm seems to be a bust.

Quote: Do whatever you do intensely. Robert Henri

Handmade Paper

Handmade papers and rust monoprinting. (Couldn't get this one to scan straight!) It seems that we're having a bit of a heat wave! 114 yesterday about that again today. Yikes! The monoprinting part of this piece only took about 2 hours instead of overnight. The background paper is my secret, rusted paper and the top layer is a blue speckled piece that was made from copy paper and blue card stock.

The transplant saga continues: My plan to load Dr. L. with as much info as I could along with my plea for help, and I'm positive the good thoughts and prayers from just about everyone we know, allowed things to fall into place in such a way that it now seems ridiculous that I was ever so upset! Faith!! We met with Dr. L at 1pm today and he said that he couldn't figure out why the transplant team needed his approval/clearance so he wrote on a prescription pad, "PT can have surgery." I wonder what the team will think about that? Then we started a plan to wean Stacy off of the Dilantin and increase one of her other meds which should take about 3 weeks. We're hoping for a balance that won't throw her precarious system into high-alert causing seizures. Sounds easy doesn't it?

Dr. L. was also in total agreement with me that it's not necessary to pursue the epilepsy surgery evaluation. Phew! What a load off.

Thank you readers for "listening."

Quote: Moodling, a combination of musing and mental doodling, can lead to floating over any number of obstacles . . . Jane Chanpagne

Feather Collage

Handmade paper on mat board in a black frame. I needed something on the left side; often when I'm stuck I wander around the yard or house. Pigeons have made a nuisance of themselves on the neighbors roof; a pest control company has been making daily stops at the house, what he's doing is a mystery, but the birds have taken flight and left me a few gifts. This particular feather was the perfect size. The paper is heavily textured with dark fragments of paper and leaves embedded into it. It will be on etsy soon.
Painted pellon base for a fiber vessel challenge on a yahoo group. I'm considering a few additions such as needle felting before I form it into a vessel.

The weather is finally absolutely awesome! We sure waited long enough for cooler nights and crisp mornings. Autumn has arrived and everything seems to glisten with soft lighting; even the palm trees look fabulous.

Quote: Things come suitable to their time. Enid Bagnold

Handmade paper

A scan of the mandala, below, without the magical moth.
Rust dyeing has taken over! The usual way to dye with rust is to put rusty pieces on the surface (mono printing) or wrap the fabric around a rusted item. I'm experimenting with paper and ways to embed rust rather than surface dye handmade paper. Nothing happened for the first 2 hours this sheet was drying and then suddenly rust started spreading throughout the entire sheet! Eureka! I want a little less rust next time.

Quote: After fifty most of the bullshit is gone.
Isabel Allende

Gifts

Once again a gift from nature arrived when needed. The magic of a moth who died on a piece of handmade paper took my breath away! I was in the garage at about 1am checking on the progress of the paper drying on racks and thought that the moth had simply landed on the paper. I left it there, after all it wasn't doing any harm but when it was still there in at 10am I took a closer look. How did it know where to land? I've since moved it around and also photographed it in a copper bowl rich with patina. I need to figure out how to preserve it. It's quite beautiful. The mandala shaped paper is heavily embedded with twigs and leaves from the backyard. The leaves provided a random light yellow tinge to the paper made from recycled computer paper.
Boy do I need a macro lens! Most of the photographs I take are close-ups and the close up lens just doesn't cut it!

Quote:
“Life is a frail moth flying: Caught in the web of the years that pass.”
Sara Teasdale