Road Trip - Coupeville, WA - Joan Schulze W/S 04-25-13

Today was the last day of the Joan Schulze workshop and it has been a good experience for me.  As usual these days, I am tired and need to get more sleep.  I have not worked on the photos from the workshop, but I am showing you the plants and landscape and two fans that I have "in progress".  Blogger is giving me grief with the pictures, so if you can't see them let me know. 


The view from my back deck with a large walnut (?) tree.  The little house on the right is derelict with missing windows, an exhausted sag and a thick coat of moss.  Betwixt my deck and the old house is a playground for the children attending the Montessori school run by the family that rents out the cottages. 
 

The state flower of Oregon - "Oregon Grape".  I've always thought it the ugliest of all the state flowers, but it is native to the state and has lovely purple berries in the fall.  Before opening the buds have a red tint.
 

 
But when they open they are mostly bright yellow.
 

Right now the most common flower seems to be the dandelion.  They are huge - so much so that I thought they might be tragopogon (salsify), but they are true dandelions. 
 

This fan is made of fabric applied to paper with PVA glue which dries clear and hard.  I had too much glue on it so the surface was still tacky the next day.  Joan advised covering the material with silk organza applied with Steam-A-Seam Lite.  Worked great and the color is not notably diminished.  We were encouraged to find unusual things to use for handles - this is a silver plate butter spreader from an antique shop.  I have some additional work to do on this fan, maybe an edging all the way around.
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Fans need to be attractive from both sides and this is the back of the one above.  The butter spreader is glued on with PVA and the spreader part will be covered with more of the bright pink fabric.
 

 
This process is laser printing on cotton fabric.  I didn't bring much plain fabric, but had some shirting fabrics and used those for my backgrounds.  Maybe not the best, but using what I had.  First the false bamboo was laser printed on a sheet of transparency.  Then laser printed on cotton fabric which had been fused to freezer paper so it would go through the printer.  I placed the transparency on the copying surface and then placed a sheet of Japanese/Chinese calligraphy on top of it.  After the copy is made the freezer paper is removed and discarded.  The fabric is pressed with a hot iron and the image is permanent on the fabric.   I need a better/sharper cutter to clean up the edge.
 

 
The back is covered with a Japanese fabric (or a look-alike) and the handle is a slat from a disassembled black-dyed bamboo mat.   I have wrapped it a bit with red cord.  Sorry for the masking tape, but I think I need some gorilla glue to hold the handle on securely
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After the class ended I walked along the waterfront street with little shops and restaurants and this great view across the Sound to the snow covered mountains on the mainland.  It was another gorgeous SPRING day with even more flowers open and leaves popping out on trees.  I think these Washingtonians just tell us it rains all the time so Californians won't move up here permanently!