{Erosion Bundle Art Journal final part}...

I think it's been about a year since I first created the fabric bundle and buried it.

And after many additional dye attempts and processes

the project is complete.

The cover

 New pages,  This includes the lace pocket.

The lace was also dyed in blueberries.

  I found this specimen jar on a road trip this past summer.

The label really does read 

"Specimen of Painting on Linen"

 Page with hair embellishment

 Page including stitched "sunflower"

And the back cover

{Erosion Bundle Art Journal part 6?}...

3D butterflies attached to the page.

And how it looks as part of the center spread in the book.

 Two more pages in the process.  I did add the shadow photo to

the journal.  The colors were so perfect I couldn't pass it up. 

A close up of the "lace" I made. It was an idea

I thought I would try out. I like it for a first try.

Hopefully you can see the flowers in it.

And it's facing page quote.

These last two pages include the beautiful dress

photo I featured on the cover of a recent art journal a few posts back.

 Again the color was a good match.

Well that's another 6 pages assembled.  I think I have approximately

4ish more to assemble before I focus a bit more on the embellishments

{Erosion Bundle Project part 5?}...

While I still have a lot of pages to create I thought I would give

you a bit of a peek into the creation of this art journal.

One of the page spreads so far. 

In order to allow the Erosion Bundle fabric to be a dominate feature in this journal I'm going to keeping the layering limited.

The sheerish layered fabric on the right was dyed in blueberries to blend with the

original bundled fabrics coloring. 

 Currently this page will become the cover.

Again I took the commercial printed fabric and dyed it in blueberries.

This spread has been embellished with embroidery stitches representing

the fields and roadside niches of tiny yellow flowers that are everywhere here this time of year.  They

are so spectacular.  I spent the day just walking barefoot in them.  And as you can

read from the poem on the left I was not the only one enjoying it. 

It reads

Forget not that the earth delights

to feel your bare feet,

 and the winds long

to play with your hair.

                                              ~Khalil Gibran

{Nancy Donaldson's Texture Challenge}...

I know I've been gone awhile so busy, busy, busy.

But I got this texture challenge from Nancy Donaldson using her texture.

You can see her post on her blog here

Nancy's Texture

I used a shadow photo of myself which I took a couple of

months ago.  I caught the photo "op" by chance when I walked in my front

door early one morning.  The sun was shining directly behind me

where it created a shadow image of myself standing in my front doorway.   I have an old metal calendar hanging on the wall just inside the front door which created an interesting background.

I wasn't sure how I would use it but I really liked it and didn't dare miss this photo op.

So I took the photo and waited to see what would come up for it.

I added a boken photo layer and several blending modes and duplicate layers later I created this

It's the perfect color for my Erosion Bundle art journal

I'm in the process of putting together. 

I hope to be able to post that art journal soon.

{Erosion Bundle part III ~ I think}...

I've decided what I will do with my Erosion Bundle.

I'm make an Art Journal with it. 

Not a big surprise I know.

But it's something I can get excited about. 

I plan on it being a journal based on the flowers from my garden this year.

Along with some poetry and meaningful words for the year.

Here are the newly washed colors.

Also no surprise, their lighter.

But I like them.  Their a really nice shade of blue gray and

a purple piece.  The pieces that were treated for printing are the lighter blue gray while the untreated piece remained a fairly dark purple.

{what ifing and my erosion bundle}...

I have been trying, unsuccessfully, to do something with my erosion bundle.

Nothing seems to get me excited about using it.

So back in the pot it went.  This time with some of the blueberries

left over from my smoothie.

First I boiled the blueberries

then left the fabric to soak in the pot for a few hours.

This time I'm letting it hang and dry for a few days before rinsing it.

As I've been having trouble keeping much color in the cloth.

I really love the color.  But I haven't rinsed it yet.

SO we'll see how much color stays in.

I like these top two best. I had already treated the fabric for printing before

deciding to do the blueberry soak.  So what if ,   what if I left the treated fabric alone.

I did and so far I'm glad I did.

{Erosion Bundle Step 2 or is it 3}...

I didn't mean to be gone so long from blogging.  But it's spring time and

even though I am stepping back from creating art to sell I am a very creative person

so I keep creating.  And the wonderful part of not creating for profit (if you can call it profit) is that the

pressure is gone.  I have been doing a lot of garden renovation.  More on that later.

For now it's about the Erosion Bundle.

 Because it's spring time there are so many flowers in bloom.  So one fine

spring morning last week I decided to try adding some of their color to my

Erosion Bundle.   These photos all show color added by "beating" the flowers

into the cloth.  Once I got past the "beating" part I took some of the purple

Iris flowers and with one petal at a time.  I covered the cloth and flower with a manila folder (wait till you see the manila folder it's gorgeous)

and hammer it.  The color took easily and the purple became this beautiful blue. 

I then took some leaves, as they are in abundance on the plants and did the same.  Some worked better

than others.  I was still having a hard time "beating" flowers but pushed on.

 The pansies we're still blooming, but wouldn't be for long with the hot weather

approaching fast.  So I took some of their flowers and transferred (I like that word better) there "faces" to the cloth.  This way even though the plants were gone apart of them would remain with me and

even continue on in whatever piece of art I create with the cloth.

They transferred perfectly.  The flowers all contained a lot of moisture so I

 allowed the cloth to dry.  I wanted the new "dye" to last.

I'm not sure how to best go about this (it might have to do with waiting, which I'm not so good at).  So doing what I know best.  I decided to

heat set the color before washing this time.  So I ironed it.  The heat from

the iron brought out the earthy smell from the transferred dye. So it had to be washed.

A lot of the color came out while I was rinsing it in the sink.  So I didn't rinse too long or use soap.

I will continue with the washing to see what happens.

But in the meantime, I wanted to try making something with the cloth.

One idea was to create these little flowers with strips of the fabric.

So I ripped off the edge and began wrapping.  The very edge of the cloth didn't have a lot

of color to it so the coloring is very subtle.  I love it.  This dying process is unique so the cloth

becomes unique in it's coloring also.  I don't believe I could get this with commercial fabric. 

I still have the other piece of cloth from the original buried piece to experiment with and most of this piece also.

I have yet to decided what to do with the remaining cloth.  Perhaps part of a journal, or a collage, maybe even as ribbon for hand sewing,  and of course more flowers ????

{Erosion Bundle Unburied}...

I actually unburied my bundle on Easter Sunday.  Somehow that seemed the right time to

do it.

I had originally been concerned about it getting some moisture.   So I buried it in the ground

where I knew the ground would have moisture regularly.  That was last January, I think.  Anyway about half way through the process I moved the bundle to a huge pile of wood chips to let it continue.

When I unburied my bundle it was quite soggy - and slimy.

There was only one thing left to do and that was to unroll it.

I was so excited.  I felt like a little kid.

The bundle did reveal a nice green tinge to it.

At first anyway.  I hosed off the debris and slime.

Unfortunately most of the green went with it.  And nearly all of the original

pink from the blood orange wasn't to be seen at all.

And it smelt mildewy. 

So after a washing this is what remains.

Mostly it looks like an old mildewed rag that it's time to throw out.

And there is a hole in it.  Which I would say just rotted away from too much moisture.

But the over all color is a gray with an ever so light tingle of pink to it.  Along with it's black mildew

spots and rust.  I expected the rust to take on the heart and star shapes of the rusty steel I put in.

But it didn't.  So now, what oh what, to make with it.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

{Eco ~ Erosion Bundle #1}...

Something I have been wanting to try are Eco or Erosion Bundles. You can learn more about

these  Bundles here

My bundle is a base of muslin fabric which I had soaked in

Blood Orange juice I squeezed last week.

On the muslin I then placed dried leaves, evergreen berries, eucalyptus from the store, (which I hope will

do something because I don't have easy access to fresh eucalyptus), I then sprinkled 

some dried herb tea and placed bits of misc fabrics that were laying on the counter. 

 I then placed another piece of un-dyed muslin on top to help

roll it up without the contents spilling out.

I am also a welding artist, so I had some

pieces of a rusty star, a heart and  swirly shapes left

behind from other projects which I placed on top

before rolling the whole thing up.

All tied up and ready to be buried.

While we get more precipitation in the form of rain or snow

here in the mountains of Arizona.  It's still not all had much.

And it seems like the process would need some moisture. So I decided to bury mine

Here it is in the moist ground where it will remain until April. 

I forgot about some large

berries I picked off the ground in town last fall to experiment with as a dye for fabrics

so I just dropped a few in the ground under the bundle and I few more on top

before covering the whole thing up with the dirt.

So now I wait till April when I will dig it up to see what Mother Nature

and I created.