9 hours later, I think most of it is in place. It´s such fun to get the last months´ production out of the house and up on the walls!

Yes, that is a real rock wall. Cool, huh!?!

Even though things are busy, I choose to spend my two days doing the most important thing I can do: spend my time with my little nephew. At 15 months, not able to walk yet, it´s his first first-hand discovery of the outdoors. He´s been outdoor before of course, but always being carried or in a stroller. Now he´s been crawling around on my sister´s big terrace, and I took him to a grassy spot so he could feel the grass under his feet. He is truly discovering! His eyes are big and looking around, almost like a camera, just taking everything in. He is listening to the sounds, the birds, the sheep, the traffic, people. And if he wants to share he points and says “there!”

What a treasure to be there with him, seeing how he´s learning, taking it all in, how he uses all his senses, and how excited he is about it all. I almost feel like I´ve discovered my surroundings all over again, through him.

And that is my point today. How often do we remember to slow down, change our perspective, and re-discover our surroundings. Not often enough I´m afraid. But how much joy and inspiration just waiting for us, if we take the time!

Have a nice day!

Outside the sun is shining, it´s summer-warm and it makes me happy beyond words!

First I used a special binder to glue together two pieces of fabric, one cellulose-based, the other animal-based (well, silk, really, wool doesn´t do too well here). When they are fused together, I put the fabric in a metal bowl of quite strong alkali, and after only a few minutes the cellulose-based fabric starts to shrink. Ten minutes I leave it in the bath, before wringing it out, and start rinsing it. To help speed the process of neutralizing it, I put a little strong vinegar in the rinsing water, and repeated 4-5 times, before I checked the ph-value to see if it was ok. Sending it through a rinse program in the washing machine, to get the last remnants out, and then ruble-drying it till it was almost dry.

As you can see, the cotton/rayon behind the silk has shrunk, and the silk is still it´s original size. Where the fabric is not glued together, the silk bulges freely. Where they´re glued together, it´s firm. I bet you can´t see it, but I used my naked-rock silkscreen frame for this test; here it looks almost abstract! You can make the most amazing things depending on the gluing-pattern and the use of colors as well. I only had time for a white-on-white-test. So, so cool! I want to do A LOT more of this. And talking of wants, I want to learn more chemistry! It´s so interesting! Anyone can recommend a book? (Chemistry for Dummies, perhaps )

And Happy National day to all Norwegians today!

After it´s dry, I fixate it in this big heat-press. (Guess what I want for Christmas?!? )

You can see the pink heart under the pink paint under my hand.

But watch what happens when I remove my hand!:

Wow! A handprint!

But seriously, isn´t this fascinating?! There is a lot of chemistry involved in the process. This binder is simply made to react at a certain temperature, just around the body temperature, so it changes colors. Uber-cool, of you ask me!

This time we get to make the paint ourselves! So cool! (100.02 grams… well, that´s close enough!) A range of colors, all inter-mixable.  First we made a rainbow of color-samples of the pure colors…

And printed it onto a cotton fabris. You can see I ran out of paint half way down. The good thing about experimenting is that there is no wrong experiment. Now we know to put more paint on the screen

But the really fun part is all the different binders you can mix all the colors with. At least 8-10 different binders with different purposes and functions. Above is the “normal” one, used in ordinary printing. Below is one of the more funky ones: a sticky glue-ish binder that will make metal-foil stick! (And just about anything else too. More about this later)

This is the result of my silkscreened turquoise metal foil fern-heart.

Did you know that almost 50% of all the fabric being produced and used in the world is cotton?! And that almost everything with a printed pattern is made with pigment color? Including clothes, bed-sheets and outdoor textiles.

Tomorrow I´ll show you more of the really cool binders!

Above is a print on matte, brushed aluminum. The paint is actually fabric-paint, but mixed 50/50 with a binder specialized for metal. The rock-pattern might be a bit pale here that has to do with the color I mixed. Since fabric-paint mainly is translucent, you can see the metal through the paint.

Unlike the reactive fabric paint used here on heavy, sand washed  crepe de chine-silk. I made this in Bergen, ad it was nerve-wrecking to see the process. This fabric is SO expensive, I didn´t want to waste a gram of it! Luckily it turned out pretty nice

I just made this poster for some musical friends of mine. Their music is all made by two of them with locally related themes. They named their group Siggjosong, after the biggest mountain on the island.

I went with a theme loosely related to our maritime heritage and their songs, and to be honest, I think it´s one of the prettiest posters I´ve made! I will most probably be making some more related art around the same theme.

It´s a bit big for me to actually wear it as a necklace, but I like it way too much to leave it in a drawer, so I decided to put it up on my living-room wall instead. So now he hangs by my great grandmother and my cousin´s daughter. Maybe a bit untraditional “ancestral” collection, but I like using different techniques, different materials, different expressions.

In this particular piece there are the four little lightbulbs grounded in ice-resin. And the little blue ticket-book. These are of course mass-produced to be sold at Michael´s, but I´ve taken her class, I know her (she´s is a try delight and a wonderful inspiration!), I´ve seen her original jewelry, and it´s fantastic! So in order for this to be a true Susan-necklace, I´ll need to add at least twice as much on it, as I´ve done so far. I´ll be on the lookout!

By the way, the little blue bead is enameled; I made that at At n´Soul.

I really loved her class, and would like to take more classes with her, to be honest. There is a ice-resin-world just waiting to be discovered out there!