Wednesday 10 February 2010

A back-to-school-day improvisation

This morning was back to school after the Summer break. We set out at 6am for a 7am start (!) It's a 2km walk to the village, which is not so bad in the earlier hours, while it's still a little fresh.



















Oh mother! Not another photo of me in my school uniform!















Oh look, the three little pigs! Happily suckling in the yard of the house in front of the school. Yep, we're talking rural! Aren't they cute?

Drop Nilo off. Turn around and start walking home. Half way home, start to get a strange feeling.



















Vulture on a dead tree. Could it be an omen? ;} Start to wonder what I've done with the keys to the house. Drats! I must have put them in Nilo's school satchel. Oh well, he's out at mid-morning, I guess it can wait until then.

So... I have 2 whole hours of interruption-free time today - and no keys - what can I do, so that I don't waste that time?

Luckily, I can still get into the kitchen and my work space, where I have some scraps of cloth, and on my shelf I have a couple of small pots of fabric paint in black red and magenta. I know, fabric printing!!! But wait... what can I print with?
















Potatoes!!!

I cut a spontaneous design in the potatoe with a large kitchen knife, and set to work with some of the magenta colored fabric paint. There's not a moment to loose!















I'm thinking that the potatoe is somewhat more successful than the air-drying modelling clay was? But I'm still looking forward to laying my hands on some lino and some decent fabric/screen printing inks! Still, have to make the best of what we have, right?

Something's missing here...















Outlines! Hand-painted outlines no less! This girl has been studying Tapa Cloth ;] By studying, what I mean is, of course, flying around out there in internet space, feasting my eyes, and making png's of all of the images I like, and cramming them into appropriately named folders, for later absorbtion. Later, I'll actually read the history texts!















Detail No. I















Detail No. II















All over print! It's actually not as easy as one might at first image! And even to paint this small section (aprox. 30 x 17 cm.) quickly and randomly was tough going.















Starting to combine this small sample section with other cloths.



















Not bad for a mornings work? What do you think? I think the idea has potential!















Right then... now for my next experiment!

By the way, don't miss out on my Giveaway! Only three contenders so far! Jude and Deb Lacativa say they're having problems leaving comments on my blogpage. If anyone else is experiencing difficulties, please email me: cvbainbridge@gmail.com

P.S. The keys were not in the school satchel and have vanished. I sawed a piece off of the front door - that's the great thing about living like gypsies - which means that we can open the top section (it's one of those stable-type doors) and climb over on chairs. Hopefully, Reinaldo has another set of keys! And if not, tonight, we saw off the lock!

5 comments:

jude said...

the design you painted and printed is just delicious. oh look, my comment worked.
!

Catherine V. Bainbridge said...

Phew! Communication! I was starting to think that nobody cared ;} Thank you Jude, that's sweet of you!

Sandra said...

Wow what beautiful things happen when one loses a key! I once left the key in the door and shut it, the key was inside and I was outside, and I had to pay someone to drill the key out of the door!!! It cost me 100 euros!!!
Many years later, the wind blew my door shut, and yes, I had no key in my pocket, this time I was lucky for in this house we have a window in the door, so we too a stone and smashed it, but ...... repairing the window, which we couldn't do ourselves, cost 120 euros !!!
Since that day I have become rather nervous about keys;)

Catherine V. Bainbridge said...

Sandra, we need to put our keys on a piece of string and thread the string through our coat sleeves, like they do with childrens mittens! :)

Jacky said...

The tapa fabric you have created is wonderful...I love hand printed fabric (thanks for the links too). Cant wait to see what you do with this piece.
Mmm... that spiral is interesting too.

Jacky xox

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