process

Crystal King Chocolate Milk painting digital sketch by Happy Sleepy

Crystal Kings new paintings digital sketches

Crystal King Chocolate Milk Here are work-in-progress images from the making of a new set of Crystal Kings paintings for Nuit Blanche 2018. This series of art objects is a combination inkjet print on canvas, 24K gold foil, and acrylic gouache on some of the colors and for all of the velvety black. The final paintings are 18 inches wide by 22 inches tall and 3 inches deep. These images highlight the front face of … >> read more

Adspace Oasis

Lovely geometric designs from new Crystal Kings art glitches

This set of images was generated from an accidental arrangement of shapes in the process of making new Crystal Kings digital images. The goal was to line up a few pixels, but instead all the shapes in the whole image collapsed onto each other. A tweak of the opacity and a few quick deletes to tweak the composition was all that was necessary. After that – zooming and panning and looking for treasures in the … >> read more

Purple pattern digital snakeskin

Every Day I’m Pickling, Tepoztlan, Mexico, with recipe

Two years ago I attended a fermentation workshop with @surlyfarmer and have been fermenting my own pickles ever since. For a while I was probably putting up a new jar every day. Documenting the beautiful colors and patterns of the fermenting plants turned into the Every Day I’m Pickling project. Below is included a basic recipe for fermenting vegetables using a simple water and salt brine. Do look up recipes to inspire you with additional … >> read more

Colorful geometric print being printed and rolled by a large format banner printer.

Large format printers birthing Crystal King billboards

What a thrill to get these photos from our awesome printer, 905 Printing, of the Crystal King banners still in the giant printer! These are for the Crystal Kings Blazing competition winning entry for the Artist Project 2016 Front Entrance Installation. Our prints are 11 feet wide and 35 to 50 feet long. The printer can do banners up to 16 feet! Hm, a detail to remember, brain gears spinning…! A big thank-you to our … >> read more

Finished batik panels

Batik dyed quilt panels

Finished batik panels
Finished batik quilt panels - morning glory leaves at left and hydrangea at right.

Recently Marc and I tried our hand at batik dyeing to make two silk panels for a large family project to make a quilt for one of Marc’s cousins who is getting married. Congratulations James and Nicola!

The photos here show the two panels being painted with wax and dye in leaf patterns traced from photos of our garden. One panel shows a morning glory vine and the other shows hydrangea leafs. The dyes were special – Marc’s grandfather worked on creating them!

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Polytopia Takedown

It took months to make, a week to assemble, 4 hours to hoist up, 2 hours to nail in place, and only 1 hour to take down. It was kind of sad! This project has a lot of life of its own, in a way, and ripping out the staples felt like disecting some creature. I kept whispering to it that it shouldn’t worry, and that I hoped it didn’t hurt too much. A surprisingly … >> read more

Stack of original drawings for Olden County graphic novel

Olden County graphic novel stack of drawings

Olden County graphic novel stack of drawings

Marc brought these down for me to start photographing, and after he hefted them on the kitchen table, he stared at the stack a bit and finally said, “This goes a long way to explain the pain in my back”. Yes it does, yes it does.

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The process of cutting and sewing the Happy Sleepy pelts

There’s been a flurry of real in the world making activity all fall around here. I delight in having the laptop set up right beside the sewing machine set up right beside the cutting table, opposite the shelves of materials and tools. I glee up every time I pull a suitcase from under a table to rummage in my collection of fabrics, which is what the suitcases hold these days instead of clothes, books and other travel essentials. In short, I’m loving my studio space.

Flurry of cutting and piecing on the work table.
Flurry of cutting and piecing on the work table. My favourite shears were recently profesionally resharpened and now glide through multiple fabric layers like a heated knife through butter. Whoosh-chuk!

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