National Park Adventures Part 3

Hey folks,

So here's the second installment about the trip Bryan and I took down the Blue Ridge Parkway in September.  The weather was much more cooperative this day, so I managed to get better shots of the stretch between the Museum of NC minerals and Asheville.

For starters we made a stop at the museum, which sounded pretty great, but turned out rather disappointing because the museum was a bit rundown.  It looked like it had been updated about 10 years ago, but had bits that were broken or badly maintained and some outdated science thrown in for good measure.  Though Bryan was the one who spotted that bit, not me.  Bryan and I were both feeling under the weather, having caught a nice cold.  We decided we'd start on the parkway and see how we felt, which like the weather got a bit better.  Neither of us had the energy for the planned stop at Mt Mitchell, however, which was a bit of a letdown after how much I'd read about the unique environment there.

Mt Mitchell is the highest point east of the Mississippi River at 6,684 ft high.  Because of the elevation there the climate is more like Canada than North Carolina.  If you visit there are many dead tree skeletons, Fraser Firs, which have been killed by a combination of acid rain, air pollution, and possibly invasive insects as well.  We stopped often to catch views of Mt Mitchell as we climbed our way up to Craggy Gardens, our next stop.

All these shots are from various overlooks along the way, with my husband, Bryan in the one on the bottom there.  The views at each stop were spectacular.  The beetle is from one of the stops just as we were getting into Craggy Gardens; there were picnic tables nearby and he was happily taking in a bit of sun.  I believe it's an Oil Beetle - Meloe Impressus, probably a male because he has a kink in his antennae. Here's a closer cropped version -

As we approached Craggy Gardens I knew there would be a lot more rhododendron bushes present, but I really didn't realize there were incredible open meadows and very little tree cover.  The name for these open areas are balds.  They are generally believed to occur naturally, though some experts theorize they were created by Native Americans as areas to aid hunting practices.  Most balds present in the Blue Ridge Mountains have been vanishing over the last century, taken over by woodlands again.  In any case, Craggy Gardens still hosts many impressive balds, which took my breath away.  In some ways they reminded me of the Irish countryside, especially that of the Burren and Connemara where there is also little tree cover and the rocks jut up from the sides of the low mountainsides.  Additionally, the elevation was still quite high at Craggy Gardens, and there were Juncos present singing and flitting between the rhododendron bushes.  It was a happy little surprise for Bryan and I since they're one of his favorite birds, which is only present in Raleigh during the winter.  Below are a couple views of Craggy Gardens plus the sunset along I-40 on the way home.

After Craggy Gardens we descended in elevation growing closer to Asheville.  Our next stop was the Folk Art Center at milepost 382.  I was blown away by it, as it's really more of a museum in some ways with a huge craft store alongside.  Most of the work was truly art, made in both the traditional styles of the mountain culture and in more modern forms as well.  They boast 3 galleries over 2 stories, with beautiful architecture throughout.  The artists in these galleries are members of the Southern Highlands Craft Guild, and some of the same artist's work was available at Moses H. Cone.  The mushrooms pictured below were on the lawn outside the building.  We completed out trip with a visit to the headquarters of the Blue Ridge Parkway at milepost 384, it was no standout, but had a couple of fun activities and displays for kids.  Then we head back east to Raleigh, having seen the first few fall leaves of the year, and carrying a bit of art back home with us.

I've been quite busy with commissions, new art pieces, and preparing for the holidays this past month and regret that I didn't finish this post sooner.  However, I've got more posts on the way, and I'm looking forward to a new project for the new year.  I plan to be exploring a Pinterest pin every day of the next year and blogging about my experiences.  I'll be covering all kinds of pins from food, art techniques, cleaning tips, beauty tutorials, and more.  I promise there'll be something for everyone, and I'll be taking you readers along with me each step of the way!  It's going to be a big year!

Til next time - Love,

Lydia

National Park Adventures Part 2

Hey everyone,

So as a bit of introduction I thought I'd share a bit about why I'm writing about National Parks.  I've always loved National Parks and Historic Sites; as a kid my mom dragged my brother and I out to all the ones she could since we were homeschooled.  And I'm pretty sure I loved every minute of it then as much as I would now.  I'm going to be creating a page on here with a list of all the ones I've been to because I have a goal to visit them all one day.  This is more ambitious a goal than some of you may realize because there are over 300 of these treasures in the US and its territories.  So I think I'd settle for all in the states if I had to, though I'd love to get to the more exotic parks as well.  I'm even geeky enough to have a National Parks Passport to record it all since they have rubber stamps to ad cancellations at each park, sometimes more than one stamp for larger parks!

Anyway, Bryan and I took a trip up into North Carolina's mountains back in September for a family weekend.  On the way there we took the Blue Ridge Parkway from about milepost 277 at Deep Gap to 316 at Linville Falls, and on the way back from our weekend we went from around milepost 332 at the Museum of NC Minerals down to 383 and the Blue Ridge Parkways Headquarters in Asheville.  The two stretches were very different thanks to the weather.  Here are some of the highlights.

On Friday's leg of the trip we were able to see Moses H. Cone Memorial Park.  It's a mansion that used to be owned by Mr. Cone, which was willed to the park service with the condition that the land be preserved and open to the public.  Housed inside the building is the Blue Ridge Parkway's craft center.  Bryan and I bought a lovely pair of prints by artist Debbie Littledeer and really enjoyed all the work from the members of the Southern Highland Craft Guild. When we'd left Raleigh it was bright and sunny, but as you can see in the pictures above the weather was changing as we traveled.  In fact I don't even have pictures from our second stop at Linn Cove Viaduct.  The mountaintops were covered in clouds and visibility was low.  We sadly missed out on the iconic view of the engineering marvel that is the Viaduct area.  Here's what it looks like in good weather:

Image from DigitalHeritage.org blog

I'm originally from Roanoke, Virginia, so I grew up with the parkway being a fixture in our Sunday drives and family picnics.  However, what struck me most on this weekend trip was how different the North Carolina sections of the parkway are from the portions I'm familiar with.  For starters all of the 16 tunnels on the parkway are in the NC section.  Additionally the NC section is much higher in elevation overall.  Here's a chart that compares using the height of the viaduct as the example -

Image from BlueRidgeParkwayDaily.com

Over the weekend we spent time with family celebrating birthdays and anniversaries at the Nu Wray Inn in Burnsville.  It's a fantastic little town that's close to Mt Mitchell, the highest point in the US east of the Mississippi River.  We walked the downtown area shopping, visited the Saturday morning farmer's market, and enjoyed to garden and front porch at the inn.  The weather was just starting to feel like fall, which made it lovely for hiking and being outdoors.  Some of us decided to go the underground route however, and visited Linville Caverns as well.

On the trip Monday we started with the Museum of NC Minerals and went south from there.  However, this entry is getting a bit long, so I'll write more about the second part of the trip very soon!  Take care and I'll be back soon with a post about various ways to make crafts and DIY projects with yarn that don't involve any knitting or crochet!

Love,

Lydia

Inkodyed Onesies

Hey friends!

So, over the last week I finally got to use the Inkodye that I received in my September Pigment + Palette box.  I'd been itching to use it from the start, but having trouble coming up with ideas for the magenta dye.  Then one of my best friends told me she was having a little girl, so I had the perfect excuse to use the dye!  I got some 100% cotton onesies, just the basic kind, nothing fancy.  And here's how I made the designs.

First off I looked at the instructions and ideas at http://lumi.co/guides/shadow knowing I'd want to try making shadow prints.  Inkodye works a lot like photographic emulsion, so I instinctively knew how I wanted to use the dye, but wanted to get it right the first time since the onesies were a gift.  Out of the 4 I made I think 3 were very successful and the 4th just so-so.  Tell me what you think:

So to make things like these I used some really simply methods and supplies other than the dye and Inkowash (a rinse that essentially removes the active agent in the dye making it light safe).  Things I used:

Painters tape (yep the kind for painting walls, one inch width)

Packing tape

Stencils

A round foam brush

A mini ironing board (any board or easy to move flat surface to lay items on while prepping and setting in the sun)

Some cardboard scraps (put inside the onesies to give a flat surface & prevent dye bleed through)

Scissors

Some old stickers I had

The onesies

A washing machine (hand washing would work too)

The instructions for shadow printing are basically this, put ink on the part of the shirt you want color, the block off the inked section with items that will become your design, or use something like a stencil to guide ink into just the areas you want it.  To facilitate this I used painters tape to tape down the stencils and used the round brush to put on the dye.  Here's a shot before the dye:

 

The stencils are from http://www.stencilgirlproducts.com/.  They have some great designs, I recently picked up some of the more versatile ones to use in my collages and other projects:

 

For the heart design I took some old stickers and cut out a heart, put the heart on the shirt then added the dye over it with the brush, to save dye.

 

Finally for the last and toughest design I cut two portions of film strip to a size that would just overlap my tape box, put down a layer of dye, then used the clear packing tape to fasten the strips down.  This is the only onesie I feel failed, but only because the images in the strip are too hard to make out.  According to the Lumi site film is one the the harder things to print from because it can vary so much, and not be thick enough to black out light where it needs to most.  I also found that the knit of the fabric made the image more obscured as well.  On a silk scarf or other item with a very fine weave it might have worked better.  Since Inkodye works on any natural fabric I may give silk a try in the future, as well as other fabrics too.

As you can see in the second shot the color comes up slowly once the prepped pieces are brought out into the sunlight since the dye in UV reactive.  So here's what the shirts looked like when I first set them out VS 20 minutes later when they were ready to wash.

The final washed versions were given to my friend Saturday at her baby shower.  Here's what they look like close up:

Look for another post soon, I have some art shots, travel reviews, and more on the way!

Love,

Lydia

Days 153-154

Hi everyone,

Today's update is all about art!  So What have I been doing?  Well, In April I participated in Live & Local Raleigh, where I had a booth showing my art as part of the street festival.  It was a fun day, there was live music, and plenty of friendly folks stopped by my booth too.  I look forward to being part of the event next year as well!  Here's a shot of my booth thanks to Groucho's Deli via Facebook.

Additionally April 8th was Draw a Bird day, so while I drew my bird that day I'm just now getting around to posting it!  I looked some of my older reference photos and selected one of a Brown-Headed Nuthatch at the feeders from our old apartment.  I drew it on watercolor paper with various colored pencils and it ended up having a nice soft look to it.

I think I'll try to find a nice sketchbook next time.  Speaking of which I'm thinking I really should start to keep a regular one and hopefully share some bits of things in future entries.  I poked around my studio a bit and found a tiny sketchbook that isn't made of watercolor paper...I think I might need to go shopping though.  Hehe  If so I think I will get something similar to a Moleskin style book since I will soon be getting an Imbue creative tool thanks to my friend Stephen Hughett and his collaborative partner Igor Zemskov's fantastic Kickstarter!  The tool will be very useful for my Irish inspired pieces or really any pattern based art I work on.

In other news I finally have a new camera!  A friend of mine was looking to sell hers and the timing was just right for things to work out.  I'm so incredibly thankful too!  I now have a Canon T3i DSLR, which I have been having a great time getting used to over the past two weeks.  So, here are a few bits of what I've been up to with it.  First there were test shots, of which the following two were lovely.

Then we went to one of our relative's 1st birthday party.  They had the nicest spread of ice cream sundaes and toppings set out, and of course the birthday princess was adorable!

I've also been keeping an eye on the creatures in our yard, birds and bunnies, there are squirrels too, but they're just annoying buggers.  The feeder is just outside our kitchen window, but the rabbits are used to us enough that I could walk just off the porch to take this picture, the Tufted Titmouse didn't mind either.  Then while I was writing the beginning of this post I kept hearing at least one fledgling Carolina Wren, and soon after had one come and investigate what I was doing on the porch!

I also took a few shots during our Memorial Day board games.  We were playing Tzolk'in, The Mayan Calendar game, which is why there are little crystal skulls involved.  A young relative was arranging the extra pieces while her dad played with us.  The lighting made it irresistible, and I went to grab my camera partway through the game.

                           

                           

                           

                           

Lastly, today I was working on my first Pinterest style project.  It's inspired by this pin of a chalkboard cheese plate!  I had given one of my brothers-in-law a beer sampling paddle, and during the party I realized it would be perfect to add a chalkboard paint finish to, so I'm doing that, plus painting some lettering on the back for him too.  I'll be going through the steps of how I make it as part of my next post.  Here's a teaser shot of all the items I'll be using to put it together.

Enjoy your last day of May and I will see you all in June.  Thanks!

Love, Lydia

Days 37-38

Hi guys,

So, There's just one day left to my Kickstarter, and I think I can let you all in on one of the new projects I was talking about.  Really this is the biggest one that I've been working on this week.

I'm applying to take a summer course at Penland School of Craft.  I've been creating my scholarship/studio assistantship/workstudy application the past few days.  Today I completely revamped my resume, and have been calling in the folks I will use as references.  It's an exciting process, and I don't mind the work.  It feels good to be doing some solid work towards a goal.  I didn't know if the Kickstarter would work out, but this is something that I can handle.  I know I can get it done and sent, even on a tight schedule.  The application is due Monday the 17th, and if all goes well I'll have sent off everything on Tuesday the 11th.  Penland is here in North Carolina, but up in the mountains so it may need the time it will take to get there.  I'm applying to two different classes, one is a photography based course that would involve darkroom work, learning new techniques and ways of working that I think would go quite nicely with my collage work.  Some of which should be out of darkroom techniques that I can use existing negatives, photos, and digital files for.  The second class is a collage class that would survey a variety of techniques within the scope of collage, plus encaustics, and monotype printmaking.  (Monotypes are a printmaking process that creates a one time only printed impression or uses a base that will print fairly or even very differently each time it's used.)

I like the idea of both the classes, and honestly can't decide between the two.  The photography one has a possible assistantship, but no possibility of full scholarships.  The other could yield a full scholarship, but has no assistantship available.  Then both could have workstudy or partial scholarships, though that would mean I'd need to pay some portion as well.

So, it's exhilarating to see things come together, as taking a class at Penland is something I've had in mind for several years now.  Ever since one of my friends went and came back raving about how great it was I've been itching to go myself.  While she's not able to make it this year, I'm still happy to try for it on my own.  It'll be a fantastic way to meet some new people and shake things up with my own work.  A kick in the pants is just what I need!  haha

Other than all that I spent my evening with my husband and my brother in law, having dinner together and watching the opening ceremony of the Olympics.  While writing a letter of intent for Penland too of course.  It felt like college all over again...not that I mind!  I've also been working on the "Bianca" piece too, but at the moment I'm not rushing it with the Penland app unfinished.  I was still able to enjoy the ceremony, and I always love seeing each country's Olympiads carrying in their flags.  The nods to great Russian artists throughout the production were great to see as well.  I just hope we've seen the last of the failures to finish preparations in time so that all will run smoothly for the games.  I always look forward to watching them, and this year I've got lots of willing family members to get together and watch with.  I think my biggest problem is wanting to see all the events and only having so much time for viewing.  As a kid I loved the figure skating routines, but I grew to love pretty much all the winter sports as the years went by.  Do you all have favorite events or do you like all of them equally?

Until next time!

Love, Lydia

Days 28-31

Hey folks,

Well, this has been a crazy week!  We got about 3 inches of snow Tuesday night (that's crisis level for North Carolina) and Bryan stayed home from work Wednesday.  It was nice to have him at home though it definitely shook up my usual weekly schedule.  I've been working in fits and spurts as I can find the time all this week.  Thursday night, when Bryan got home from work, we ended up spending half the evening visiting our urgent care doctor and finding out that Bryan has Shingles.  He's has a rash most of this week that was bugging him and that explains why.  So we got meds and such and will hope it goes away fast; I hate seeing him uncomfortable.

Though Thursday did bring that craziness it also brought one of the loveliest sunsets I've seen in a while.  I managed to get a half decent camera phone shot for you all here:

As for Friday, I worked on a new piece and straightened up my desk.  In starting the new piece I found an unfinished watercolor that I'd forgotten about.  It's the one propped up on my desk here:

It still needs a good bit of work, but so far it's pretty solid.  It's from a still life of tiny shells I had set up back in July when we went to Myrtle Beach.  The other things in from the shell painting are various other works in progress, though it's not all of them.  I will confess that I love starting new pieces, but sometimes it's harder for me to finish them all.  It's definitely compounded by the fact that I enjoy having a variety of pieces to work on at any one time.  However, things are definitely moving along well despite any distractions from my personal life.  And I found some little plastic cups to put my pastels in, solving the organizational problem I mentioned last time.

My new painting will be a mix of watercolor with some inks and pastel.  Here's a shot with only a little color added:

It's a more figurative form of portrait that's based off a character I've created for a game.  She's a lady thief and an albino, who's convinced yellow is her lucky color.  In terms of style I've taken some inspiration from playing card designs as well as Manuscript illustrations.  I've worked a good bit with more Irish styled pieces, though this is drawing from more general medieval examples.  I still have a bit to design in the border as well, though I've got some ideas for it already.  I've been enjoying the style of work and may make several more to I get a good series going.  It's definitely the kind of piece I wouldn't mind doing commissions in!

Beyond all that the deadline for my Kickstarter is nearing.  I could use all the help I can get!  Either way 52 pieces will be made, I just like thinking I have the support so I won't be as stressed while making them.  And the idea of making 365 pieces will be sad to let go of.  If you can spread the word I'd appreciate it!  - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lydiadickson/art-for-all-year-2014

See you all Monday!

Love, Lydia

Days 22 & 23

Hello,

The past two days have been so cold here, but there was barely any snow.  Just enough that I got a few pictures from my iPhone to share.

 The rivulets of ice flowing from the roof of our porch were still frozen late into the afternoon yesterday, but they were brilliant with the sun gleaming through them.

 The leaves and hollows between grass had their own hidden caches of snow.  All the tiny, sheltered areas protected the deposits of sparkling white snow.  Even the bark set deep in the shadow of one of our pines held a bit.

Today's been even colder and I can feel the chill coming up through the floorboards in our house.  Normally I don't wear socks around the house much, but on nights like tonight I need them!

I've been working on a couple pieces, but some of the details can be so fiddly sometimes.  I'm always hesitant to show unfinished pieces if I'm not quite sure what I want to do with them next.  I have this finished collage to share though.  It's going to be titled "Dino Apocalypse Dream".

I actually started this piece quite a while ago while teaching in Maine.  I did an afternoon collage workshop and since only one boy attended (the kind who was extremely well behaved) I was able to get it started as I demoed some of the transfer techniques.  The base in this case is a nice solid piece of pine with a knot in just the right place.  I ended up using a hair dryer tonight to speed the drying of the smoke from the volcano (an experiment with Winsor & Newton watercolor texture medium) and couldn't believe how lovely the pine smell that came off the wood was.  Otherwise there are sections of ink, watercolor, wax pastels, Liquitex pouring medium, and colored pencil as well as the paper and transfered images.

Now, having had a mug of peppermint and chamomile tea I will head off to bed.  There's so much more to work on tomorrow!

Love, Lydia