My fiber art Bird in Digital Shibori Landscape was published in the book “Innovative Fabric Imagery for Quilts.” Click the photo to go to my flickr page and see more photos.

(Argh! I’ve been a terrible blogger! Family & day job stuff has been filling the parts of my brain that apparently I use to blog… Please accept my apologies!)

I spent the weekend working on a new print, Flight Plan. It’s a bit of digital + gocco fusion. The background beige image (which is a photo of an old, slightly yellowed, linen sheet) and the spatulas and button were printed digitally. Then the cicada was screened in green with my gocco. And the whatever-they-are diagram lines were also gocco printed. I think it’s a little weird and I like it. I post some bigger images and photos of the process on flickr.

New digital collage. As you’ve probably surmised, it’s an orchid with green toy race cars and a button thrown in for good measure. I’m enjoying the formal arrangement in this work and the cosmic rabbit gocco print (in my previous blog post). For a simple arrangement, I spent a surprising amount of time working on this. I had the orchid and green car images included from almost the beginning with various other elements– spoons, spatulas, other buttons, a rooster… After deciding that the orchid and green cars were strong candidates for the work, I realized my existing photos weren’t cutting it. So I took new photographs of them and I’m glad I did. I just got the orchid this past weekend and even with my black thumb, I haven’t killed it yet. Lucky. (I say that in my best Napoleon Dynamite voice. Sweet.) The toy car belonged to me as a child. I have several very cool metal toy cars. This one is a Dinky. Orchid with Green Racer No. 6 is available as an 11″ x 17″ print in my etsy shop.

He had to be green. The spoons had be there. The dyer dial could not be replaced. Some things just must be…

birds & shibori #8Originally uploaded by triciamckellar

New digital collage! The Birds & Shibori series includes digitally altered photos of my hand-dyed shibori fabrics and photos of birds around my home in North Carolina.

This is the gocco printer. I’ve just flashed a screen.

Here’s my first print with the screen!

What fun! :)

This is my newest toy, err, totally necessary equipment. It’s a print gocco! It’s a system for making screen prints– it uses bulbs to flash screens, then ink is applied to the screen and mashed through it to paper or fabric. Here’s a movie of a print gocco in action.

So now I’ve got to go try it out! :)

love the clouds…

After a long summer of hot, sunny days, a cool, misty, overcast morning was a welcome relief. It was a perfect morning to get some photos of the birds that frequent the telephone line over the cow pasture along my way to work. I love these kinds of bird images; I’ve used them in several of my digital collages.

I stopped at the pasture on my way to work this morning. A cow walked toward me, over to the fence next to my parked car as I was getting my camera from the trunk and started doing some crazy number with her tongue.

So I got a couple of shots of her and then took several photos of birds and telephone lines. As I was heading back to my car, she looked up at me again.

Was she glad to see me leave?

I’ve been working feverishly in the studio this weekend on my super secret collaboration– I can’t wait to fill you in on the details… But, for now, here are the latest mail goodies. I bought these used letterpress type blocks from the type junkie. I may stamp with them– I’ve been thinking of ways to get more hand worked imagery in my collages.

I am totally thrilled that Zolton at Lost at E Minor mentioned me on their blog of pop culture! Thank you Zolton! Check out the blog. Where else can I read about the mathematical properties of river lengths and giant toys!? While you’re there, be sure to check out Lost at E Minor’s banner gallery.

I’m spending the evening in the studio working on new images and sorting through photographs. Since I’m not ready to share the new work… or tell you about the super exciting, top secret collaboration in which I’ve been invited to participate, I’m hoping a bunny photo will suffice for a blog post. This rabbit was in the NC State Fair a couple of years back. Aren’t those the craziest markings?

bird in digital shibori landscape, 18″h x 36″w, fiber, 2006
digital prints on silk of altered shibori imagery, cardinal photograph, & other images, hand & machine quilted

I shipped this quilt off yesterday to the C&T Publishing special exhibition “Innovative Fabric Imagery: A Digital Exploration in Quilting” at the 2007 Fall International Quilt Market & Quilt Festival (Houston, Oct 27- Nov 4). This work is featured in the companion book “Innovative Fabric Imagery for Quilts.”

You can see more of my quilts here.

More goodies in the mail! Another old book I bought off ebay. This one is the Patent Office Report of 1868, Volume III. Hundreds of pages of gadgets, contraptions, dreams, plans, schemes, machines…