Grounded in Springtime initial composition finally done

I've been reworking how I work in my studio to accommodate my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and the damage to my left eye's retina over the last few months and I finally got my new dancer piece to the stage where I can share a picture.  Yippee!

This is a big milestone which also marks several accomplishments in creating a new workflow and learning new tools.  And I'm sure I'll talk more about that later but for now, I'm just going to enjoy the visuals.  Here's the foreground composition.

This is a new thing for me, doing a piece on a plain white background.  Because when I was an art quilter, I'd piece the background first and then create the foreground on top of it.  Now, I'm doing it on white paper with the intent to try out various backgrounds in Photoshop before I glue everything down and finish the final piece.    This will not be the final dancer as I'm not liking the blue spirals on the yellow body.  I think they should be green for that whole green spring effect I'm aiming for.  This also means the spiral galaxy on the right needs to be lighter so there's more tonal contrast with the dancer.  And I'm going to do some variations along these lines along with using marbled fabric for that circle on the right. 

Here's some of the background fabrics I'm thinking of using.  It will be interesting to see how they work with the final foreground I develop over the next week.

Spiral galaxies

My theme for the dancer series work is "Dancing Through Space & Time" so I'm using astronomical images in a variety of ways.  I'm looking forward to playing with this one as a background, maybe with some color shifting.  

starry night sendoff

This one has lots of color and will give me a less structured background while still having the feel I'd like to achieve.  Also color shifting in the future for this one too altho it's likely to go a different direction.

More pictures will be shared as I finally get some new stuff produced. 

Dragon color sketch in red/orange/yellow

Friday I got the dragon silkscreens made and on Saturday I printed outlines in both black and red on 3 cotton pieces then did the same on sketchpad paper so I could try different color variations on the paper before doing them on the fabric.  Then I had to wait for them to dry.  Which meant painting didn't begin until this morning.   Here's the dragon screened on paper with a sample of the colors I was trying out for the red/orange/yellow version.

And here's the first paper color trial.  I narrowed the colors to 5 total but only used 3 in this first pass.  The other two colors are for shadows and blending.  I wasn't careful about my brush work since this was a try of the colors themselves and the details aren't as important for that.

First try of colors

I like the combination and I'm sure some more shadows and highlights will make it fabulous.  I'm also counting on blending being easier to do on the fabric than on the sketchpad paper.  Tomorrow will bring multiple dragons in different colors on paper and fabric.  Fun times in my studio!

Baby step progress on dragon pillow

My progress on my studio goals for the week was very slow this last couple of days.  Wednesday was a sick day and today was cleaning lady day so I had to do the "shift to the part of the house she's not working in" dance.  I did get the dragon sketch inked and got separation drawings for making silk screens done.

thermofax and dragon pieces

I use a thermofax machine to make my silkscreens and it has a limit of 8.5 inches wide so I have to separate the image into pieces to make 2 different screens to make one large dragon.  I should get the screens made and samples done tomorrow.  I had hoped to get them done today but life, what can you do?

The other big accomplishment was to gather together all the household, financial and personal files that need to be moved into the new file boxes I got.  The old arrangement was a lovely piece of furniture that I have to bend at the waist to read the file labels.  Since that particular bend is no longer easy to do, I got new boxes that can be put on a higher shelf in my computer work area.

non-urgent papers accumulated since first back surgery in 2013

And the current winner in the "never say never" category is today's dragonfly paint samples.  In looking at what I had done earlier, I realized that the watercolor dragonfly on watercolor paper was screened with black ink and the cotton ones were not.  So, not really a good comparison.  And I realized I hadn't done any on silk which is my preferred fabric.  So, two dragonflies on silk with black for the screen.  I used the same colors I had used before, the rightmost dragonfly on each fabric was done with watercolor alone first then with a topcoat of thinned medium.  The left one on each fabric was done with watercolor paint mixed with the medium.  It made a big difference on the cotton, less of a difference on the silk.  The silk ones are also almost as bright on the back as the front whereas the cotton ones are faint ghost images on the back.  I'm really liking the watercolor on the silk and will be doing more with it in the future.

cotton on left, silk on the right

What kind of dragon do I want?

Today was spent reading some dragon drawing books and doing some sketches.  Two dragons from today will be taken further.  The first is what I'm dubbing SeaDragon.  I only got the initial sketch done and will have to ponder what patterning or other fringe or fins I might want to add.  I also have to think about how the patterning will work as a silkscreen to be colored in.

first sketch of SeaDragon

This Feathered Dragon is already a few steps from the first sketch.  I've added some feathers on the wings and along the neck and tail.  I want to refine the tail feathers and think about whether he should have back feet showing or not.

Fire-breathing dragon?

But neither of these is quite right for my young friend.  I'm thinking a dog/lion based dragon might work for him since he likes to roar when we talk about dragons.  So, tomorrow more dragons and more painting samples.