Two Roads Diverged - Kelly

Well, it is finally done. 

I did two sessions of painted shibori to make the woods. The cut out the two roads diverging.  The "leaves" and "branches" were made with a brayer wrapped with a rubber band.  I did some additional painting to creat the undergrowth by the road.  The black marks on the aspen trees were done with a Pigma pen.

"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost is my favorite poem and my life story all rolled into one.  It is short so I want to share it after the photo.

Two Roads Diverged - Kelly Hendrickson

The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

YEAH!!!! I'm back!!

Blogger wouldn't let me post unless I entered through Internet Explorer for about a week!  (I HATE Internet Explorer....more importantly IE hates my computer and continually messes it up!)  But I just HAD to touch base with you guys so I'm submitting....for today at least.

OK, now to catch up.....

I'm WAAAY behind on this March challenge...Poem.  First, I was sick for two weeks which threw a major wrench in my schedule for just about everything!  Then, I had challenges getting the piece to look like I wanted it to.  Lots of experimenting has been going on.  I think I have it now so I'll be working on it to be completed soon.  Might have to skip April....we'll just have to wait and see how quickly I can catch up on other things as well.

Anyway, here is the beginning of the March Poem piece.  I chose the poem by Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken" which begins...."Two roads diverged in a yellow wood..."  It is not just my favorite poem, it is something of a life poem for me on many levels.  To me, living in Minnesota, a yellow wood is aspen or birch. I had been considering just how I wanted to make the woods when I saw a tutorial on doing just that with painted shibori!!! Talk about timely! After paintin the shibori first with a dark gray and then with white, I
went in with a Pigma pen and made the black marks on the birch trees!!  Then I used a brayer with ruber bands wrapped around it to give the impression of leaves. The problem came when I tried to introduce the divergent paths....but I think I've worked that out now.  I just need to execute it.  And if that doesn't work, I might just truly execute the whole thing!!  LOL!!

Here is what the backgound "woods" looked like.

Spring Forward - Kelly

Finally, I was able to complete the February piece! A few days late but here none the less.

The title is "Spring Forward".  There are several layers of Spring in this piece, starting with the surface design on the background. There are hearts and Xs and Os. All stand for Love..."In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love." - Alfred Lord Tennyson.  Then the watch main springs...springing out of the watch and...forming spring flowers. Also, the quilting is spirals to repeat the main spring motif.

Spring Forward

Already have the fabric batching for the Poem piece. Hoping not to be late on this next one.

Fiddler On The Roof

I laughed...I cried.  And many of the lines and songs from this movie are a part of our life now.  One of my favorites is when Tevia is talking to God in the barn about wishing he were a rich man.  "Would it spoil some great eternal plan...if I were a wealthy man?"  And the relationship with his wife and the loves of his daughters...so many faces of love and devotion.

Fiddler On The Roof - Kelly

This piece has all kinds of my own fabrics - hand-dyed, snow-dyed, discharged, ruching, confetti dyed, stamped, drawn on, painted. Only the fiddler is not my fabric but black Kona.

SNOW TREE - Kelly

Well, I had a lot of inspiration for this one after receiving a foot of snow last week.  So I just HAD to snow dye the background (oh and the backing and sleeve fabric as well....) in honor of the snow and the theme.

The background is woven snow dyed fabric, raw edge applique using commercial B/W and stone fabrics.  I folded the front fabric to the back for a "binding" because I wanted to get as much of the tree as possible and not to detract from it.

So here it is...a gray day in the frozen tundra after a winter snow....

SNOW  TREE

Kelly Hendrickson

Text Speak - Kelly

I can hardly believe I made it in under the wire.  Couldn't connect to the internet for 3 days and it seemed that everything I needed to get done required SOMETHING off the internet!!  But my wonderful live-in computer guru dug and dug until he found the solution and now I'm up and running very well.

So here it is....the title is Text Speak.  One of the joys of being a grandmother is that your little ones keep you up to date on the latest music, games, electronics, etc.  I text with my grandson often and with others on a regular basis.  Along the way I have had to learn the "language" to keep up.  Now a lot of it is second nature but it seems there are still things I don't get.  But thankfully I can just ask my grandson!! OK so he rolls his eyes like he can't believe I don't know that but it is all in good fun.  Just so you don't miss it....There is a row of smiley faces down the upper left side and asterisks across the top (machine embroidered).  I had a blast making this one.

TEXT  SPEAK

Kelly Hendrickson

Raw edge applique, all hand-dyed fabric background. All text and smiley faces were printed on a computer printer fabric sheet.  I "painted" half of fabric sheet with some leftover dye that just happened to match very well (I love serendipity!!) so some of the texts are green and some white...just like on my text messages. I chose to use a regular binding on this one because all my text messages are "framed" by the edges of my iPhone.

Translations:  THX - thanks,  IMHO - in my humble opinion,  BRB - be right back,   BTW - by the way,   CWOT - complete waste of time,   <<<VBEG>>> - very big evil grin,   C U L8TR - see you later,   *$ - (one of my favorites)....Starbucks!!,  AYTMTB - and you're telling me this because...  And of course ROFLOL - rolling on floor laughing out loud.

When Inspiration Hits

OPPOSITES.  You might think that would be an easy one, right? Perhaps so. However, I struggled with it for weeks now and was just not coming up with something that excited me. 

Until today.  At my wit's end, I decided to google OPPOSITES just to see what might show up....maybe an idea to work from...or maybe even inspiration!  One of the first selections was a list of opposites.  Well....that sounded promising!! And sure enough, the light dawned, birds sang, euphoria filled the studio!!!

I decided to use a few of the opposites in one art piece!! Well....when I started looking and thinking, I came up with more than a few. 

So here it is...I had a black and white piece I did for a project a couple of years ago.  I started with that (the Picasso-esque man and woman in the woven textile background.  Then I cut and added the strips for the left side and top. 

FOURTEEN OPPOSITES



Yep...you read it correctly!!! There are actually 14 opposites in this one piece.  Can you find all of them?  I'll get you started....one of them is Black/White.  The other 13 are up to you to find.  That's why I put it on this post as a large photo.  (If you need it still larger, check it out on my art blog www.kellyartist.blogspot.com - it is XL on that site.) Some of the opposites are perhaps not as easily seen as others. A couple of them are a bit subtle.  But they are all visible!!  One I ditched (natural/synthetic) because it would not be discernable in a photo.   

Good luck! I'll publish the list on November 1 so you can check your list!