Screen Printing Class

I am having so much fun in my screen printing class! We are learning several different methods - painted screen, stencils, photo emulsion and this other one where you paint this blue resist on and then put another emulsion on and wash the resist out. The one above is a painted screen. Kathy, the teacher, has all these great clip art books and tonight I found a Star Fleet Manual in the pile. We're talking nerd collectible, from the 1960's. It gave me a great idea to print a page from it onto a shirt for my husband (who is a big Star Trek fan) for his birthday. He will love it! Next week I will hopefully get to print from two of my screens. I am really excited to see how they turn out.

New Resin Pieces

Last weekend (around going to ACL) I did another big batch of resin collage pendants. These were on the website for only a few hours before Brooklynski snapped them up. The one with the bird over the bridge is one of my most favorite things I have ever made. Anyway, I am pretty proud of the latest batch of resin stuff so I wanted to post this picture. I also took a bunch to Parts and Labour in Austin.

Austin City Limits Music Festival

I really don't know if I can put into words how extremely cool my first ACL experience was! James and I got free tickets in exchange for helping out my friend Liz with her booth.

The first day when I arrived, I was a little overwhelmed by the heat and the massive crowd but I only had about an hour to check it out before my shift at the Bolsa Bonita booth started. While I worked, James saw Arctic Monkeys and Arcade Fire. He loved both shows. I enjoyed hanging out with Liz, people watching and seeing how her booth runs.

The second day I was better prepared! I went down there early with my brother Jeff. We saw Ben Kweller together who was AWESOME! I have a bunch of his songs on my itunes and whenever one of them comes on it always makes me feel happy. He was super energetic on stage despite singing into the sun. He really rocked out his songs. I had forgotten how cool it is to see live music. It's great to just close your eyes and let it envelop you! Afterward Jeff went off to meet his friends so I just walked around and heard different bands and took pictures and ate a burger until my shift started. Later that night James came up and we saw Bob Dylan together. His voice is so rough now but I loved the music and the new arrangements of his old songs. The songs they played made me want to be dancing! They had roots in old country and western, blues, early rock - so great.

Hooray for ACL. I am definitely going next year. It was just such a fun experience for me! I posted some pictures on my flickr account.

Model, Canvas Bags and ACL

Yay! Model pictures are back. For a while it looked like Angie was moving away from Austin but it turns out she's staying. Hooray because she is my favorite model! We got together this week and took some new pictures at her swanky new apartment.

You know how we are all supposed to be using canvas shopping bags at the grocery store now? We have been slowly building up our collection and last week when we went to the store, we brought home almost all of our groceries in re-usable bags. Now the challenge will be to remember to take them to the store each time. To help me I added "take bags" to my weekly reminder to grocery shop on my phone. Also, we put them back in the car after we unloaded the groceries this time. With all these safeguards, SURELY, we won't have to ask for paper bags ever again! Yay!

If you are going out to ACL Fest in Austin this weekend, be sure to swing by the Austin Craft Mafia booth where my jewery will be sold! And also check out Liz's purses in the Bolsa Bonita booth.

Work, Screen Printing Class & Photography

I've had my head down, working in the studio all week - applications and getting ready for ACL. Hoping to make some new necklaces again soon. Had a super fun sushi lunch with Jen P. on Wednesday. The day before I had a cool parenting conversation over coffee with my friend Tamsen. I feel so fortunate to have such amazing friends.

My screen printing class starts next week! Forest and I signed up to take it together. Kathleen McTee is teaching it, she is a super cool lady. I had to order some very strange supplies for it - it will be interesting to see how we use them. It's funny how you take all these weird parts and make something cool with them. Now I just have to decide which image I want to use.

I have been trying to get back in the habit of keeping freshly charged batteries in my camera lately. I miss taking photographs. I keep seeing neat stuff. Like yesterday I walked out my back door and there was this spider web right by the door and the sun was shining through it. It would have been a cool thing to photograph.