“Muddy” Painting and Icy Inspiration

Every tree and plant was completely encased in ice. These evergreens were really drooping.

The tree on the right is a very old and knarled pine that always reminds me of an oversized Bonzai.

Iced pine needles on the left.

Dripping frozen Dusty Miller on the right, in a planter on the front step.

These Sedum flower heads are totally covered, with their drippy icicles. The flash on the camera helped to show the ice better.

Anyone who has visited my blog in the past, has probably seen various shots of our South view. This photo is looking a bit Southwest, and we were really secluded. The fog and rain nearly hides the trees in the hedgerow, and the mountains were only barely visible.

Now to the studio…. I spent yesterday doing a lot of cleaning and rearranging again in our greenhouse. It is getting more crowded all the time. The latest addition is the barrel stove. Due to the price of oil, we are relying mostly on wood for heat. The barrel works very well, and I was ready to see what I could get fabric to do.
The cats really love it out there, near the stove. That's Baby in the chair (not a very original name- I called her that when she was a kitten, so that her new family could give her a real name… we never found her a new home, so she became My Baby), I love the patches of color on her belly.

Today's painting goal was to end up with some pieces of fabric that could work for stone walls, etc. I began with this yellowish beige mottled fabric.

I began by mixing paints in various muddy colors. I was looking for colors in the stones and rock outcroppings I have been studying. This is a change for me, I usually use clear, pretty colors, not the colors of mud.

Left is a piece of fabric painted in muddy colors. I laid them on in streaks to resemble striations variations of colors found in stone or rock outcroppings and stone walls. Salt has been added in the right photo.

Here is the above piece beginning the drying process. I placed the paint boards on an angle beside the stove to drip dry, and see what would happen.

This would be one of those "don't do this at home" things. Never leave painted fabric near a wood stove unattended. With the way heat rises, the fabric did not get warm at all.

The same fabric a bit farther along the drying process. It was really starting to make some great drippy patterns from the angle of the board and the salt.
It's a good thing the floor out here is made for water drainage, I can hose off the drips that hit the floor.

Here is the piece nearly dry, along with the first one of the day finishing up drying in the background.
In case anyone is wondering….. Yes, the toilet is still out here, and not where it belongs. We are still taking showers in a very cold bathroom with a huge gaping hole in the floor, the other bathroom has no shower or tub- way at the other end of the trailer. For that matter, it doesn't have a finished floor either. At least it has a smaller hole, and now with a space heater, is not quite as cold as an outhouse. So much for the weekend fix up job. Did I mention the remodeling contractor husband??

Two more pieces, the left one is done to look more like mossy stone, to resemble what I pieced in "Wisteria Window".

This is the first piece that I did, It is the one in the background of the first photo of two pieces. I really like the marble-like patterning it ended up with.

These are the finished pieces from today's playing in the "mud". I now have fabrics to use for walls with and without moss. Now to the fun of cutting, fusing, and stitching.