progress, of a kind

There have been men in the house. Plumbing and carpentry have been represented. Soon, a cameo by an electrician. Then Men with Chain Saws for the yard. Then the grotesque house my grandfather concocted from determination and packing tape will be ready(ish) for winter, and I will be able to walk around in the studio without hearing the floors crackle and splinter -- which is very distracting. ka-ching, ka-ching, but not as bad as I'd feared. Not even close to what I'd feared, which was more like ka-ching, Ka-Ching, KA-CHIIINNG!!

Meanwhile I've been working on something. Inspired by a course description for a class that will focus on crosses and Xs, I made some Xs. The Xs became kind of petroglyph-ish.

Initial pencil sketch (right)
Sharpie tracing for projector (left)

Then, emboldened by my recent foray into dyeing, and empowered by my newly neatened stacks of fabric, I immediately found something in my closet that would work as a background. Except it was pink. Here followed a flurry of trying to turn pink into ochre.

Test swatch 3 or 4
Acrylic paint (ochre) on pink commercial print cotton.
Too yellow.

Test swatch 6 (or so)
Overdyed (tan) painted with acrylic (ochre and burnt sienna).
Much better.

I was thinking of the sueded, hand-dyed Cherrywood fabrics for the figures (the dark rectangles pinned on the background sample, below), but I think it maybe the wrong texture. Not to mention that it's wickedly expensive and I have a boatload of things on hand -- one or another of which surely could be made to serve. . .

So, on to roughing in the figures. This will be much, much larger than I'm used to -- in the range of 45 inches (115 cm) square -- so I put up some big paper and fiddled with the projector until I had something not too scary, then splashed on some paint for a very, very general idea.

It never hurts to have a professional share her expertise.

And that's as far as I've gotten. Which is further than I've been in a while. It's a good feeling.