I am definitely doing the Whole Brain Teaching thing next semester. http://bit.ly/UmQcs

Handspun & Handknit

We went to Gatlinburg last weekend, and Lorelei got to try out her mittens & hat. I wanted to make her something out of handspun, and she chose a blue/gray combination of some Louet that I had spun and chain plied:

I still need to make some I-cord to keep the mittens together, but she loved them:

When I first started creating art, I wanted to change the world. Later, I realized I was changing the world. . . mine.

Very cool - meditation & drawing all in one - anyone can do it: http://ping.fm/OjVZk

New Blog!

I have a new blog - not for knitting, but for teaching. I pulled some old posts that relate to the theme of the new blog, teaching art, and added them to it.

I will be done with grad school in a few weeks, and I hope to get to update them both more frequently!

The new blog is Teaching Art in Alabama.

This Summer

This summer went by entirely too fast! We spent a week at the beach and Miss Priss loved it - she is very much a beach bum. She had a pirate party for her birthday. It was a lot of fun. If anyone is taking kids to Panama City Beach, the Pirate Cruise was the best money we spent all week. We can't find enough good things to say about it.

During July I participated in Ravelry's WIP Wrestlemania. For those who don't knit, a WIP is a work in progress. I have way too many, and I got about 12 of them completed during the month. I played on Team Tardis.

I also painted a butterfly for Decatur's public art project, Arts Aflutter:

I am also painting a rain barrel for a similar project in Huntsville.

That's all I have for now - I have been putting most blogg-ish stuff on Facebook, so my blog has been neglected!

Plexiglass Drypoint

I am planning on spending 6 weeks with my Art II class on printmaking next year. I wanted to create an intaglio lesson plan - we have a small, seldom used press. I had heard of using plexiglass for engraving, but didn't know if it would work well with water-based ink. I did a little playing around to try it, and it will be fine for high schoolers.

I've never done anything but collagraphs and relief printing, so this was new to me. I did a little doodle & some scribbles to see how it would work.


I added waterbased printing ink:


and scraped it into the cracks with a piece of plastic (an old driver's license):


Then I wiped off all the excess ink with old phone book pages:


My brand new press didn't work right, but I managed to get a semi-decent print - the only bad part is it's very light. Once I get my press fixed (or replaced) I will experiment a little more and see if I can get it darker. Maybe if I don't soak the paper. See how light it is?


It only bled in a couple of places, though. I should be able to tweak it to use in class.