Save the date...

Coming to an internet near you:

Text on Textiles online 4 classes (5ths optional and free) at JOGGLES. 

And more specifically here. http://www.joggles.com/store/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=75_1235&products_id=23449

Start Date: Thursday March 15, 2012
Class: Text On Textiles
Instructor: Susie Monday
Cost: $45/4 lessons

This class is scheduled to begin on March 15, 2012.

NOTE: This class requires use of an all-in-one printer/copier or desktop copier with the ability to enlarge and reduce printed images. The techniques used make use of copies and prints from such a copier/printer. Optional techniques included also involve use of a computer and digital camera.

Have you ever wanted to incorporate a favorite word, poem or quote into an art quilt, garment, art doll or other textile project -- going beyond simply writing or embroidering the text? Or do letter forms and shapes appeal to your sense of design? This surface design/mixed media class will give you a set of process tools for making text and words an integral part of artfully designed fabrics that you can use in a wide variety of projects.

Starting with design exercises that encourage a unique expression of your creativity and interests, you’ll learn three specific techniques for transfers of text, words and writing to fabric using ink-jet printing, polymer medium and textile paints. 

FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS

 

As I look at my poster "Commit Time, Space, Focus, Money," it occurred to me that I could explore each of these words in a few posts -- and look for what others (a few others) have said about each of those words and concepts, what might prove helpful to me, and helpful to others.

And because I came across a wonderful post from Jane Dunnewold on her blog about focus, I'm going to start there. (It certainly resonates with "commit,"as well!)

We all (fiber, mixed media artists) know the seduction of materials and tools. Unlike the painter, who pretty much gets to choose between oil and acrylic and watercolor, we fiber/mixed media artists, like performance artists among others, see the world as our tool box, the hardware store, the art store, the grocery store, the Dollar Store, all opportunities for tools, colors, embellishments and attachments. Not to mention the myriad of techniques, new stuff and new approaches that arrive each month in the mail, and each morning on the web.

The solution for me: Choose. Stop trying ANYTHING NEW for a set space of time (Despite my intention to try something new each day, it won't be in the studio on a piece of fabric). I am easily seduced by the idea of trying a new resist, a new paint, a new approach and it often pays off with good work. But until that tool/medium/pigment/approach has at least a hundred hours behind it, it's probably not going to be GREAT work. I have enough in my tool box and on my shelves and in my bins right now for hundreds of pieces of art cloth and art quilts. Not to mention the two big bins of thermofax designs, sketches for work, ideas for stamps. SO choose.

Focus is also about coming into the studio with intent and, for me, with a one word or two word idea of what I will achieve in the next 4 hours; maybe it is just cleaning and sorting, or working on marketing, or it's getting the design of a new art quilt onto the design table. But when I don't make a focus, I tend to bounce around doing a bit of this and that and then hearing the siren call of laundry or putting on a slow cooker meal or digging around in the garden. Focus, focus, focus.

Today's Focus is completing a blog, first (done), then getting my calendar complete through March.  Two words: BLOG, CALENDAR. After that, I'll be headed out for four days of teaching Central American Youth (and their Texas hosts) though the CAYA program, with a couple of days spent at the wonderful, restorative and internet free zone of Selah, the Bamberger Ranch and Environmental Education Center.  Pictures coming, soon!

 

 

Onward Artist's Journey

The weekend's Artist Journey/Arthist Journal workshop was, again, a wonderful gathering.  We each made posters 9with many differnet sizes of prints to take away) of a slogan, motto or theme for the upcoming year. (Mine, above). With a spattering of writing exercises, some short meditation sittings, a bunch of great meals, and deep conversation about our acomplishments, challenges, work-in-progress and life in general, we left the workshop renewed and with direction and intention. What more can a teacher/facilitator ask?

 

 

The photos here are just a bit of our work. First, Pat's notice to herself:

JULIA'S MANIFESTO

My cool calendar, above (each made her own version).

Pat's artist trading card size verison of her SATISFACTION poster (as shown during production in a screen shot.) an

PS As a little subnote, anyone who wants more information about why I opposed the current legislation before Congress dealing with internet issues may want to watch this TED.com video explanation of the proposed legislation PIPA/SOPA:
http://www.ted.com/talks/defend_our_freedom_to_share_or_why_sopa_is_a_bad_idea.html

It looks as though the bills are tabled for the time being.

Fiber Art Exhibit in Round Top, Texas

I'm honored to be included in this year's Fiber Art Exhibit at Copper Shade Tree Gallery in Round Top. It's a fun daytrip from SA, Austin or San Antonio, so I hope many of you will be able to see the show, and hopefully attend the opening!

I have three pieces created specifically for the exhibit (as do all the other artists included). 

Gerald and Debbie run one of the most artist-friendly and collector-friendly galleries I know of -- so they deserve both a round of applause and an art-outing to visit. (PS: You can also visit the new Texas Quilt Museum in La Grange on the same outing if you go Thursday through Saturday.)

P.S. Loyal Reader Request

If you have time, go to this site and rank my blog! (This is my one-new-thing to try today. Read my One-New-Thing challenge tomorrow.)

http://craftpop.com/links/el_cielo_journal-2527.html

Rat-a-tattoo

Tattly from Made by Hand on Vimeo.

 

Ah, art is in the air. On the arm.  Art is everywhere.

I'm working on some street art/graffiti art ideas for activities for (of all things) and Air Force Summer Art Camp for teens next summer. In my strollings through the ether, I came across Tattly. I want these. They will be a line item in next month's budget for sure. If I regret anything about my age (and pain tolerance) its that I will never get a real tattoo. 

These temporary ones are even better than the real thing -- all I'm waiting for is a way to do this with my OWN designs!

P.S. Dear friends, I do this blog mostly for me -- recording in semi-public form the life in the studio (and the things that inspire that life). And you'll find odd, non-quilty and on-the-fringe sorta artful, artsy posts here too, like this one. But I am wondering, could you recommend me to your friends on FB or with a Tweet or just in a select email to someone you know likes to read art blogs? I have had the same 100 subscribers more or less for three years, and, although marketing my classes and my art is not the main purpose of the blog, it is one reason I use to justify the time spent.

I'd love to increase my readership, so if you can help and pass along the url (http://susiemonday.squarespace.com)

You and your friends can subscribe through FeedBurner or with your own RSS link by using the buttons and fill-in spaces on the sidebar.

Then leave your name in the comments block (with a way to get back to you electronically), I'll enter your name in a drawing for a package of genuinely delightly hand-designed and printed fabric scrapplets for your own creative use in collages, quilts and mixed media -- and I'll throw in a temporary tattoo, too. (Drawing will be on Jan. 31.)

On to Philadelphia!

I wish! If I could do anything and money were no object, well, I would be there at the joint SDA and SAQA Conference and FiberPhiladelphia coming up in a couple of months. I am waiting for a sign from the universe that money IS no object, but it hasn't come yet!

One nice thing, though. I will be represented by a piece of work in the Art Cloth Network exhibit LINES AND NUMBERS, a combined exhbit of two juried shows, one determined by size and the other by the placement of a line in the fabric composition. Its just a treat to see how each artist handled these challenges, and each work shows the strength and voice of each individual.

If you'd like to see more, Barbara Schneider, one of the Art Cloth Network's team who has made this show possible (along with Dianne Hricko and Judy Langille, in particular), you can order a catalog from BLURB here: 

Lines and Numbers Two Exhibitions by the Art Cloth Network Barbara J. Schneider

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2921362?utm_source=TellAFriend&utm_medium=email&utm_content=2921362

 

Barbara says:

If you go to this link (above) it will take you directly to our book. You have options then as to whether you want your copy to be soft cover or hardcover or with a dust jacket. The ones I ordered are black linen with dust jacket for $33.95 each plus shipping.  Soft cover is 22.95. I would not recommend the IMAGE WRAP hard cover. If you are planning to order before end of January they have a $10 off code NEWBK2012 if you spend over $50.  You can decide on shipping which reduces the cost of you don't need it ASAP.

Here's the piece I have in the exhibit (exhibit originally titled 24 by 90, juried by Els van Baarle).

This is a second piece inspired by the same sunny day walk by my neighbor's century tree agave, swarming with hummingbirds.

and here is a detail of the first:

Both of these pieces are available for sale, if you are interested send me an email!

Meanwhile: here's how they were done.

Both are adaptations of the process that I demonstrate in my QUILTING ARTS DVD "Mixed Media Textile Art," using screenprinting with multi-color printing, over stencils (the ironed on shapes of the agave and blooms and the shapes of the hummingbirds. I cut the design stencils, iron them onto the fabric (in this case a rather strange one -- blackout curtain material fused to poly felt). Then I color  a blank screen, using water-soluble crayons, that I  then lay over the stencil and screen print with polymer medium or screen-printing medium from Golden until the colors release and transfer to the fabric. The background of the piece is mostly done with just a blank screen using the same technique with a variety of different kinds of crayons, and added to with light acrylic textile paint washes. I then screen printed the little squiggly energy marks, kind of short hand for the movement of the hummers. The textured leaves were printed with a thermofax made from a microscophy image of leaf veins, and screened over the stencil of the agave leaf shapes.

If you'd like the basics about this technique, you can still buy  the DVD from Quilting Arts at:

http://www.interweavestore.com/Quilting/DVDs-Videos/Mixed-Media-Textile-Art-DVD.html

and see a sampler video at:

http://www.quiltingdaily.com/media/p/21091.aspx

 

 

Are You Still Blank?

Your journal I mean? The blank book syndrome I call it. We artists often get these lovely gifts of blank books. They can stay that way without conscious effort. I am the last to guilt trip anyone into using a sketchbook or journal. I am erratic, to tell the honest truth. I am frenetic about sketchbooks at time and absolutly immune to their charms at others.

The key, as I noted in a previous post, is to have a reason. Whether its to make an artful record of one's crative life, or simply to have one spot in which to record, paste, glue, stick and stack all the bits and pieces that float in and out of consciousness (that's usually my approach), a blank book can be your friend.

Here are a few more ways to approach the use of an artist's sketchbook, blank journal or all-too-precious book of emptiness:

1. Glue in every scrap of loose paper you can find in your purse or backpack. Alter the papers (unless their content is crucial) with paint, crayons, colored pencils, cutting and wrinkling. See what you can make with nothing.

2. Save a book to designate for a trip journal. No trip on the horizon. Start planning the dream trip of your artistic creative life. It might even come true. Paste in internet printed documents, research ticket prices, look on AIrBNB bfor the best possible place to stay. Instead of watching another mindless TV show, start planning the dream reality trip of a lifetime. Who knows?

3. Take a magazine picture, cut it in half, glue it down on a blank page, draw and color the missing half your own way.

4. Cut colored paper shapes. Glue. Tear out the page, cut and glue again.

5. Cut and glue a NOTAN a day.

Other ideas? List them in comments. Thanks

PS. Still need help? consider coming to El Cielo this next weekend for Artist Journey, Artist Journal. Or one of the other workshops this spring....

ARTIST JOURNEY/ ARTIST JOURNAL JANUARY 20-22
(optional Fri. night potluck & critique session)

This annual workshop has become a tradition at El Cielo Studio. Spend the weekend in creative activi- ties that help you set the stage for a 2012 filled with productivity, imagination, focus and artistic goals. Using original and time- tested exercises gleaned from sources around the globe, we’ll banish procras- tination, make an annual love letter, work on a goals and artist date calendar for the year, and find ways to remind us of what really matters in our artistic lives. Meanwhile, you’ll work with mixed media and surface design techniques to start your artist’s journal.

FROM HEART TO ART; PERSONAL MARK- MAKING
FEBRUARY 10-12

(optional Friday night potluck & heart-centered gentle yoga session)
In this workshop, you’ll start with common and familiar symbols -- like the heart shape of Valentine’s Day for example -- and through a series of creative genera- tive exercises, you’ll make something new and differ- ent to incorporate into your design, composition and surface design. And then, in honor of the season, make some one-of-a-kind Valentines, too. Tools and tech- niques explored include paper lamination on fabric, hand-cut stamps, and gelatin plate monoprints.

CALLING ALL ARCHETYPES
MARCH 23-25
(optional Friday night potluck & work-in-progress critique)

Spend some time thinking and working on using your inner crew for work and support. In this workshop we’ll explore archetypes, inner voices, gut reactions and their influence on your art and art-making with lots of improvisational exercises to loosen up your approach to art. Make a small artist's altar using fabric and mixed media techniques including mono-printing, collage and digital printing on fabric to remind you of a practical and sacred part of your life. (artist altar frame, $10 supply fee) 

April 13-15, FROM COMPUTER TO CLOTH.
And at Southwest School of Art: FINDING YOUR ARTIST VOICE, Monday afternoons, Feb 6-March 26

 

Loving the Internet, another reason

Ok, it's a pill. And a time-suck. You can hear it just take the energy out of your day. But on the other hand, I just spent a little time in a discussion, bilingual, with a former student in Guatemala about the change of government now occurring. Example one of the connectivity. That was on Facebook with instant messaging.

But even more to the point (as far as time spent), as a traveler who loves adventure, I have found a new tool for finding the perfect place to stay: Airbnb. As in Air Bed and Breakfast -- though the listings range (in theory) from treehouses to shared flats to luxury apartments. We are planning a trip in Spain this summer and I just booked a week long stay sharing an apartment in Barcelona and a private apartment loft in Madrid for three days. In between, we will be walking the last stage of El Camino de Santiago, St. James Way, a pilgrimage walk that has a long history, and was recently spotlighted in the Martin Sheen film THE WAY.

After a day of exploration, yes, a day, I found just the right spots. These are places you can't find anywhere else on the web. I reccommend the process, and the reviews -- and recommendations from friends -- seem to suggest that this tool is right on target. I'll let you know when its all in the box!

 

Journaling a New Year

Here's what I've decided: (if you care!)


Make 4 Mixels collages and 3 paper collages a week. Print out the Mixels. Keep them all in a sketchbook. Make the themes important to me, or funny, or random. Just try a one a day thing. Or sit down and do them all at once. Write when I want to.

Another goal: Buy a stylus and try that with the iPad.

Why all the tech? I've proposed a lecture and workshop for next year's International Quilt Festival in Houston about Apps for smart phones and tablets as tools for quilters and mixed media artists. It may not get on the docket but I want to be ready if it does!

On the pragmatic side of things, I am also doing a food diary and exercise log, per my trainer's reccommendations. I'm using a free and very good app called My Fitness Pal. The reason is not completely un-art related-- We are getting in shape for a 100 km walk on the Camino de Santiago in Spain in May. And that I am sure will inspire a whole lot of artful thinking, doing and making. we'll only walk about 10 to 15 km a day but I know from a walk we did in Ireland about 10 years ago, that the joints appreciate less weight on them.

Three Sure-fire Ways to Use Those Blank Books

IT'S NOT THE CHOICE, IT'S THE COMMITMENT.

Let's start with the easiest:

1. Find your watercolors (or colored pencils, or markers or...)

Open the book, not to the first page, but somewhere else.

Start coloring a "background" wash of color/s that you like. Don't stop until you have 10 pages colored. See where that takes you....

2. Do the Morning Pages commitment (from Julia Cameron's Artist Way) for a minimum of one month. As soon as your eyes are open, open the book. Write (and/or draw) three pages non stop (should take about 20 minutes, so set the alarm earlier if you need to). Write stream of consciousness, whine, complain, moan, smile, be thankful, list to-dos. Do not read the three pages over for at least a month. More about The Artist Way later.

(PS There is even a Yahoo Artist Way circle.)

 

3. Take a stack of old magaines, cards, calendars and other paper stuff to bed with you at night. Cut and/or tear out pictures you like, for any reason. Or use construction paper. Glue the images inside the blank book in interesting arrangements if you wish, or just old time scrapbook style like you might have done at age 10. Write about the pictures, if you want to. Keep this up for at least a month.

More ideas coming tomorrow.

 

Still Mulling, but Mixel Makes Me Giggle

I'm still mulling over my journaling  choices for the new year, and here it is Jan. 2 already.  I think I will sort it out soon, at least by the time I figure out to remember writing 2012 on my checks, datebooks, etc. (Since I don't write that many checks anymore (do you?) it may take me a while for that task to settle into a new date, though.)

Meanwhile, I did find a fun tool that is almost as interesting as cut-paper, old magazine collage making journaling -MIXEL, an iPad app that is a very simple, free-form cropping and layering collage tool with a social media twist --  Which is the downside actually, since any image you use in a collage, even cropped, becomes freely available as an entire image, and usable by any other Mixel user. 

I am not highly protective of my art images since I long ago realized that anyone who wants to steal an idea or image from work of mine could do so pretty easily. My attitude towards art that I make, whether the reaction is scorn (I don't like that work... who does she think she is making fused quilts?) or theft (they must like it, huh?), is similar to that of composer/lyricist Cole Porter -- "there's thousands of more where that one came from."

BUT, you do need to realize that if you sign on for Mixel, and use your photos, or pictures of art, or other computer generated or accessed images, those become "free" content for other users to rearrange, add to or otherwise appropriate.  And it's intentional, being an app that the inventors think of as a kind of round-robin, remixing visual conversation.

 

I'm enjoying it, uploading consciously, and having fun with the visual remixing I see. I hope to get better at the process, but the photos above and below are some of my first tries. So my first couple of days of journaling have been online and totally word-free. I am saving them in a EVERNOTE notebook, called JANUARY JOURNAL, so I guess this is a start!

The Blank Sketchbooks

A recent discussion on the Quiltart list about using and hoarding blank sketchbooks has led me to my new year's commitment- make journaling a part of my daily life again. I have shelves of journals, but I have let the habit drop the last two years, except when I was working on a specific project that took pen and paper.

My January workshop (artist journey/artist journal) is one with a journal habit focus -- and I'm a bit embarrassed to admit my own laxity. So, guess this is a good time to resume. One decision: now that I'm relying often on my iPad for day-to-day notes and resources, do I go to an electronic journal, like a special notebook on Evernote or Circus Notebooks, or even Bento? Or find another software (a task in itself!) Or use paper book and iPad both? Or make a back-to-paper decision, since it's just more of an object that has the sensory pleasures of tactile and linear time inherent and intact. I really love electronic media, and unlike many artists and non-artists alike, find that it has amazing and interesting and full of creative potential. I love taking photos to spark art work; like the instant alterations possible with photo and art apps; just love exploring the mixed media aspects of the screen. I still want to buy a stylus and try working enscreen with that kind of interface.

A commitment to daily private journaling would be different than the (not so regular) blogging I did this year. one doesn't like to whine in public, does one? But electronically, would it feel the same?

And back to the Quiltart discussion -- seems there are a lot of people out there who collect the beautiful books, blank sketchbooks with lovely papers, but rarely use them, at least not beyond a few days. I do have some suggestions, ones that work. And, those I'll be tackling myself to get back in the habit, before my workshop January 21.

First, answer a why: Why do you want to keep a sketchbook or artists's journal? What purpose can you imagine it serving? We are all too busy to do things without reason. Here are a few reasons to consider:
To deepen your work and path as an artist
To document your work process and creative process so that you can be more productive and more conscious of your process
To give you references and resources and inspirations for a particular project or series of work
To organize all those scraps and bits and pieces that you collect in a month, a season, a year
As a way to move past blocks, the inner critic, the unexamined things that keep you from your work as an artist ( for this, I recommend Artist Pages a la The Artists Way by Julia Cameron)
To record your work in process
To record creative action and work so that at the end of the year you know what and where you have been
As a work of art in itself -- artist journaling as an art form can combine or contain any of the other reasons and purposes, but the opposite is not necessarily true. I have never thought of my journals as works of art, and no one would think so to see them, but I do enjoy seeing the work of those who do journal that way.
As art and skill practice. For example, journals with a drawing a day, an art quilt journal with a small quilt each week, a sketch diary carried and used daily to improve drawing skills, etc.

So what's your purpose?

And are you committed to that purpose?

Here's what Seth Godin had to say about that today:
"
The reason productivity improvements don't work (as well as they could)

GTD, 18 minute plans, organized folders... none of them work as well as you'd like.

The reason is simple: you don't want to get more done.

You're afraid. Getting more done would mean exposing yourself to considerable risk, to crossing bridges, to putting things into the world. Which means failure.

The leap the lizard brain takes when confronting the opportunity is a simple formula: GTD=Failure.

Until you quiet the resistance and commit to actually shipping things that matter, all the productivity tips in the world aren't going to make a real difference. And, it turns out, once you do make the commitment, the productivity tips aren't that needed."

You don't need a new plan for next year. You need a commitment.

Tomorrow (or next day) i'll Iist some fun ways to engage in journaling, no matter your purpose,-- and, if you're in the area, there is still room in the workshop next month at El Cielo Studios.

More Photo Fun

One thing about sitting around a fire there's lots of time for app exploration. Here's another one that I think will make some killer thermofaxes. Or maybe just fun for playing around. It's an iPhone app, but I'm using it on the iPad with imported photos. The palm tree, a reaction to days of snow?

It's called News Flash (corrected title!) by the way, but what it does is a dot screen, like an old time half tone. Or you can translate to lines or waves. I like the dots best. Look under MORE for other controls.
I can't put in the app store link as I am working on my iPad, but with the right name it should show up in the app store. I am using the iPhone version on my iPad.

Snowy Snowy Day

We're spending the week twix Christmas and New Years in New Mexico (while house and hind are watched over by the neighborly crew). iIts the first time we've been in this much snow in decades, and it is beautiful enough to keep me glued to the window. (The fire is nice, too, nothing like snow to make one appreciate fire).

Coming up in Fiber Philadelphia 2012

Art Cloth Network will have an exhibit among the diverse, intriguing and far-flung offerings in the new year at Fiber Philadelphia 2012, a citywide two month long celebration of textiles. Thanks to member Diane Hricko, we will have two of our juried exhibits combined into one called Lines and Numbers, showing during the festival:

Lines and Numbers
White Space, Crane Arts' Old School
1417 N. Second Street, Philadelphia, PA 19122
Open Wed-Sun, 12-6pm

FiberPhiladelphia
March - April 2012

FiberPhiladelphia is an international biennial and regional festival for innovative fiber/textile art. Exhibitions are planned for 40 locations including major institutions and independent venues. They will include work by renowned international artists and a new generation of artists breaking into the field. 

"In the past 20 years, the boundaries between High/Low art and medium specific recognition have been blurred. Unlike the other major craft media, textile artists have the freedom of transcending materials, unbound from tradition. Although many choose to continue to work with historic materials and methods, many have branched out to explore the infinite possibilities of materials and techniques. One can weave metal, clay, even light. Quilts are not necessarily bound by thread or cloth and vessels can be more than objects to contain physical matter; they can reject functionality and explore conceptual notions of spiritual and metaphysical containment.

"FiberPhiladelphia is partnering with InLiquid, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) membership organization dedicated to providing opportunities and exposure for visual artists and designers."

Art Cloth Network artists whose work will be shown include:

 

Laura Beehler
Janet Hadingham
Sue Copeland Jones
Lisa Kerpoe
Dianne Koppisch Hricko
Judy Langille
Mary Ellen Latinio
Russ Little
Susie Monday
Barbara Schneide
Peggy Sexton
Jeanne Sisson
Priscilla J. Smith 
Katherine Sylvan
Connie Tiegel
Deborah Weir

The two combined exhibits include one that had a size requirement and another with both a size and a line placement requirment but all the art meets our groups' definition of art cloth

Art Cloth - It’s all in the process

 The Art Cloth Network is dedicated to exploring and promoting art cloth. Art Cloth is cloth transformed by adding or subtracting color, line, shape, texture, value, or fiber to create a compelling surface.

If you'd like to know more about FIber Philadelphia check their website at www.fiberphiladelphia.org/ and for more about Art Cloth Network, see www.artclothnetwork.com.

My piece in the exhibit (detail in the photo above) pushes the definition of art cloth since it's a strange combination of painting, screen printed stencils and watercolor washes on black-out curtain fabric, fused to a poly felt background. I used the multicolor screen printing process to make the hummingbird and Century Plant images That process is one that I teach in my CLOTH PAPER SCISSOR DVD Workshop video and one we'll be playing with during the February workshop at El Cielo. I love the feeling of individual hand and spontaneity that this process gives a piece.

Here's more about the DVD:"Making use of a fun and accessible screen-printing method, Susie shows how to design a screen with water-soluble pigments, and then how to print the image using a polymer medium. Complementary fabrics are designed using stencils, water-soluble crayons, and textile paints. And next, using simple fuse-and-stitch layering and piecing, Susie demonstrates how to construct a colorful, improvisational piece of fiber art. Further design elements are considered and added, including painted details and another layer of screen printing. Finally, Susie shares strategies for turning the piece into a three-dimensional piece of artwork, by wrapping and attaching it to a wooden frame (such as a house shape). Hand stitching and embellishments can be added to personalize the piece."

Fabulous Jalapeños

 

And now for something completely different. Candied Jalapeños are one of my go-to treats-- hot, sweet, pickled. A small jar will find its way into many of my family members' and friends' Christmas stockings. These treats could not be easier to make; in fact, the small jars for repackaging cost as much or more than the interior goodies!

 This recipe is originally from allrecipes.com. and I've copied it into this post.

  • 1 gallon diced jalapeno peppers
  • 5 pounds white sugar
  1. Drain off enough of the juice in the jalapeno jar so that adding the sugar won't cause a spill. Pour the 5 pound bag into the jar and seal tightly. Let jar sit for at least one week to mix flavors; flip the jar daily to blend.

My Costco sells pickles not in gallon jars but in 100 oz. jars. Doing the math, I added 7.5 cups of sugar. It only took a couple of days of turningthe jar for all the sugar to be dissolved. I waited about a week to eat them. Some possibilities. Add a slice to the top of homemade pimento cheese on a whole grain cracker. Pour a 1/2 cup including juice over the top of a block of cream cheese or a log of soft goat cheese. Serve with crisp crackers or buttered toast points.

I repack the pickles in sterilized jars. 

If you want the pickled jalapenos to be food-safe outside of the fridge (I usually just put a "keep refridged" note on the jar) but you can process the jalapenos in a boiling water bath for 5 minutes (small jars) or 10 for larger pint sized jars.

 

Fun with Instant Sketch

I'm always looking for fun and differenct (and free or almost free) apps to load on my iphone, and this one is a winner: Instant Sketch. It's just another variation on a photo sketch tool, but it does precisely what I want with a miminum of settings to tinker with. This will be a great app to share in my COMPUTER TO CLOTH workshop at El Cielo this April, since it's an easy way to go from photo or collage or artwork to a completely black-and-white line drawing. You can alter the line hardness and softness, and add or subtract deep blacks. 

The image above is from this letter collage set and shows the possibility for using this app with art/collage and text, as well as its intended use with photos. I've posted a couple of those examples below, as well.

You can choose an HD or SD (definitions high or standard) for your output and email the images or share via FB.

The sketch above is from a cropped version of this photo (you can crop and scale in the app, too, or take a photo on the spot).

 

 

 

Well, other than the wrinkles, it all works. And I did earn everyone of them!