Work in progress

I was working on a grant proposal for the NIH. When I'm writing, my brain needs a break, so I paint. I managed to paint six day of the dead scarves. Here are three of them. I spaced out on taking pictures of the other three at this stage. Anyway, here I'm about to roll them up in newspaper. I'm too cheap to buy newsprint, I just save the papers out in the garage. After they've sat out there nice and dry (and hot) for about 8 weeks I use them to steam the dyed silk. At this point the ink doesn't run onto my silks. Usually, the idea is that I'll pile up the newspapers so that I draw from the oldest papers (on the bottom), but who are we kidding, I grab what I can, go through, look at the dates, do a quick calculation in my head and go.

I lay out two overlapping layers of papers and then put the scarves on top-- make sure they don't wrinkle. Then I cover with another layer of newspaper-- really two layers because I overlap the sheets. Then I roll them up into a big cylinder. Next I flatten that and roll it up. My husband Kurt usually will help with this because I can't get a tight enough roll to fit into the steamer. The scarves steam for about 2 hours before I turn off the heat.

Anyway, in the top one you can see a fourth of July theme with fireworks and a picnic in a graveyard. Next, are three witches with flowing hair. One has an apple, the other a pumpkin, and the last one has bats fl lying around. The last one in this picture includes Mariachi's playing at night. You can see the light strings in the details. I'm in the process now of highlighting these with metallic paints.