Kalamazoo Institute of Art Fair Tomorrow!

Tomorrow is day one of the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts Fair! Stop by 3-8pm Friday, 9am-5pm Saturday in Bronson Park, Kalamazoo! The weather looks like it will be wonderful so get out and enjoy the sun!

Other news: 

I was accepted in the Fallsburg Fall Festival of the Arts! Keep September 20 & 21 open!

I just heard this past week that the Grand Art Market in Lansing cancelled several of their days. It now is only going to be held Aug 16 (9am-5pm) & 17 (12-4pm). 

Palmer Park

Thank you to everyone who made it out to Palmer Park this past weekend! It was a lot of fun and quite the adventure- especially with the wind! The wind did give nice movement and flow to my scarves though. 

Next show is under two weeks away, May 17 & 18 in East Lansing on the MSU Campus. I will also be showing my silk painted jewelry here. Hopefully this one won't be as rainy or windy as the last :)

Other news! I just heard today that I was accepted into Northville's Art in the Sun! June 20-22. Keep those days open and stop by!

New Work! New Shows!

Spring is here and with it, a lot of new work in preparation for up coming summer shows! 

A few shows I am having a booth in are:

Palmer Park Art Fair

May 3-4

 Palmer Park, Detroit. 

 

MSU Spring Show

May 17-18

Michigan State University Campus near Grand River Ave.

 

Kalamazoo Institute of Arts Fair

June 6-7

314 S. Park Street, Kalamazoo

There are a few other shows I am tentatively doing:

Grand Art Market at Lansing City Market

Celebrate Downtown Okemos

Meridian Crafters Market

Hope to see you stop by!

Now, here's a peek of some of my new work that will be for sale at my shows :)

More and more plumeria!

Northern Lights

Some peacock ties

First Show of the Year!

Kicked off the new year with a show! All this month I'm Artist of the Month and my work will be displayed and for sale at Ledge Craft Lane in Grand Ledge. Thanks to Christine for all the help in getting it set up. This Saturday, the 18th, there will be an Artist Reception from 2pm-4pm. Hope that you can stop by!

 Lately to expand on the silk painting I've been doing, I've started doing these hoops. They look great when the sun catches and shines right through them

Like on Facebook!

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https://www.facebook.com/cgrabskidesigns

:)

First Frost

Thank you to everyone who made it out and supported Flint Institute of Arts First Frost Holiday Show! It was a great show filled with many other talented artists.  Hope to see you all there next year!

My next show is just under 2 weeks away in Auburn Hills. Come stop by the Auburn Hills Community Center on Saturday November 16 between 9am-5pm!

After that I've got one in East Lansing at the MSU Union December 7-8.

Thanks and hope to see you soon!

Christmas Kitties

So, being a crazy cat person and having the holidays coming up, I thought it was fitting to combine the two.  Especially if they are wearing Christmas outfits.  I had a holiday craft show, so I turned them all into ornaments as well.  Then the back they all say 'Meowy Christmas'

More and more plumerias!

Got some new batiking materials in! Which means time to start getting some batiks done.  While waiting for my supplies I designed several scarves. One of which was with plumerias! Who doesn't love plumerias? 

So, supplies show up and time to get started on the process. I started by tracing my line work onto the silk for the scarf.  After that, I was debating between starting with the flowers or the background, flowers won. 

Then, time to start the work of the background base colour and the leaves.

 Iron, wash, and rinse. Then complete! It's 8" wide,  44" long.

Travelin' the World

To get better at updating, I set a goal for myself to update at least every other week, preferably every week.  It's nearing that 2 week mark so update! I've been working on some paintings, but they are going slow (very slow).  Tomorrow, I leave for Florida for two weeks (yay!) and will probably not get to much updating cause of working at Disney, and maybe a bit of playing while I'm there.  So I figured I'll post some work from my last semester that I never got to post yet.  


One of the things I love most, is traveling.  So, I created some travel imagery (for things such as posters, postcards, ect).  Enjoy!

Venezia, Italia! (Venice- if not able to be told by the gondola)  

Na Pali Coast on the Island of Kaua'i, Hawai'i

China

Plumeria Practice

I've been doing quite a few batiks lately, and the different colours have just been blocked in.  I wanted to try something different and new where I more of painted with the dyes and blended the colours.  So to try this idea, I just did a test swatch.  Its about 12x15 inches.  

 I love plumerias, one of the prettiest and best smelling flowers.  But, I'm also pretty happy and excited about how this worked.  Will definitely be doing more of this within my batiks.  

Fish Scarf

I've been having fun with batiks, besides they are a nice change from paintings.  For this I wanted to create a scarf that wasn't just a pattern, but something more fun and design-y or illustrative.  So, fish swimming! 

Playing around with the values of the different parts, I settled on the bottom right

Exploring different colour variations.  I really like the 2 furthest right, but I didn't think the orange would translate well to a batik, so the right one won.

Full final. The silk is a very light, transparent one, which I think enhances the fish

Fancy artsy picture

Close up on some of the fish

Big Cats

So, at then end of the past year, I did a set of posters with some big cats (meow).  However, my computer died and they were lost within my external hard drive,  but now its fixed and they're back!  I plan to continue the series and do some more kitties (a snow leopard is already in works) along with some other animals.

Cheetah

Tiger

Lion

Sister Bonding

 For the holidays my sister, Valerie, came in from Seattle. She loves to knit and crochet and will probably die knitting where people will find her mummified in a cocoon of yarn years later.  (Check out her knitting here: http://vallymade.blogspot.com/)   While she was in town, we went and picked up natural (non-dyed) wool yarn so we may dye it ourselves and she would then knit them.   You start by rinsing the yarn, wring, and while still slightly damp you dab on they dye so it is sure to get through all the layers.   Once dyed, you wrap in saran wrap and steam for about an hour.  We let it sit over night once steamed and rinsed it in the morning and hung it to dry.  Once dry it is now knittable.  We used Jacquard (Green Label) Dyes.

 

  Pre-dyed yarn

 

 Val dying hers

 

Val's final (pre-steamed) yarn

 

Me dying mine

 

 My final (pre-steamed) yarn

Cheetah Batik

So, for one of my designs, I decided to make a batik of it.  Batik is a method of dying fabric using wax.  You start with your lightest colour, and whatever you want to stay that colour, you put wax over.  Then you add the next darker colour, and repeat as for as many as you colours you have.  I used silk with Jacquard Dyes.

 

Getting started with the first layer

 Detail of all the spots I had to wax around

 

 The end outcome once all the wax is washed off! 

(finial picture to come later)

Older work

So, here is some of my work from the other year that I feel I should post.  More recent work to come soon

Value Study for a scene from Peter Pan

 Final Painting of Peter Pan scene. 

Acrylic about 2.5 x 3 ft

 Hickory Dickory Dock

Oil, 9 x 13 in

Cause I love Antarctica. 

Oil, 18 x 24 in