Tag Archives: wax batik

Colorado River Art Retreat

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Watercolor of hills held in front of the hills; horizontal line of tan on the hills and watercolor represents the Grand Ditch

This lil postcard features the Grand Ditch, a water diversion structure that takes water from the tops of the Never Summer Mountains on the *west* side of the Continental Divide and ports it to the Cache la Poudre River, leading to the South Platte River. Part of this trip was dedicated to feeling some civil-engineering-and-climate-change-related feelings about the Colorado River and the development of Colorado. The Grand Ditch and Colorado-Big Thompson project enabled and continue to supply water for agriculture, industry, and municipalities on the *east* side of the Continental Divide, and these diversions have significant impacts on the Colorado River watershed by reducing the flow that would have been there.

Watercolor with pen outlines of mountain in foreground, mountain in background.
Watercolor of river floodplain in vivid green in foreground, subject matter in background.

On the left, I did the pen sketch first, and then the watercolor – I kind of like the differences between the paintings I do with pen and without, the pen ones end up more… tiny and detailed? But somehow feel restrained, or constrained? On the right I did a watercolor sketch underneath the color, and it ends up bold, and colorful, and not quite “accurate”, I focus more on color zones instead of lines.

Watercolor in simple colorblock style of mountain in different shades of green in foreground, mountain in background
Black marker drawing of mountain in foreground, on purple clipboard, mountain in background
Black marker drawing of mountain in foreground, on purple clipboard, mountain in background

I wanted to do a painting that had less detail and focused on big blocks of color to minimize all the painting of trees (my least favorite and least satisfying step). From the initial marker drawing (top right), it took me 2 minutes to add the pen details, and then 16 minutes to add the watercolor.

After visiting the quilt store in Grand Lake and picking up some fabric, I decided my trip to Inspired Art Experiences in Estes would be a fabric acquisition trip as well! I chose to do a batik again, silk marbling, and tie dye.

Sign with quote: the artist is not a special kind of person; rather each person is a special kind of artist. -Ananda Coomaraswamy
I loved this sign they have in their back room.

The silk marbling was incredibly meditative and calming, just dropping in the colors and swirling them together. I was going for a “river rocks” type of design and I think I really got it.

Water marbling tray with blue dots on the left, the dots have been swirled together on the right.
Closeup of fabric that has been marbled with blue swirled background and blobs of red, brown, and black.
Many different fabrics
Finished river rocks marbling on the top and right, sleeve of the tie dyed shirt on the left, batik inspired by the Grand Ditch in the middle, fabric from Grand Lake on the bottom left, and the RMNP map bandana on the bottom right.

And I added my new fabric into my current project, an English Paper Piecing quilt of trapezoids for my bathroom 🙂 which now, of course, vaguely smells like campfire, but that’ll fade.

Hexagon made of trapezoids of many different fabrics, it is colorful and mismatched. Some fabrics are repeated but not next to each other.
Watercolor outline sketch of a mountain range in foreground, mountain range in background
Watercolor of a mountain range in foreground, mountain range in background

This is the painting I went to do, and I hiked a new trail to do it! Adding the color to the sketch from the left took 40 minutes 🙂 And a few people stopped to comment and talk to me, which I usually appreciate as long as they are respectful and treat me like a person instead of content.

Rocky Mountain Art Retreat

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The Teewinot art retreat went so well, I decided to do another more local to me. And I think I’ll keep doing these. I stayed at the YMCA in Estes Park and spent a long weekend drawing, painting, doing crafts 🙂

The YMCA has a whole craft center and you can make glass items! I broke up pieces of glass and put them in this mold, and then they put it in the kiln for me. It was fun! And shiny! And breaking the glass wasn’t as scary as I thought. They had a tool that was like pliers, and I was working with really small pieces, so there weren’t any crazy explosions of pieces. Once I got home, I made my pendant into a bolo tie.

And I found a quilt in the Visitor Center! This is “Friends” by Darcy Love, 2003.

I did a lot of drawing from my car, because it was very cold and my hands wouldn’t work outside.

Since it was so cold, I decided to see if I there were any art activities in Estes Park, like galleries or something. And I found Inspired Art Experiences! They have a bunch of different crafts you can learn, much like a sip-and-paint but for lots of different things. I did an alcohol ink lightbox as a gift for my friends, a batik, and woodburning!

The alcohol ink was a bit stressful since I was trying to depict an actual figure, their bird, and the ink moves very quickly. I think it would have been less stressful if I was just trying to make a cool background or fun color blending thing.

The batik was also a bit stressful, the wax came out really fast onto the fabric, so I had to move quickly. But it was fun! I did a batik at an art camp back in elementary school, so this was a fun callback. The teacher described it as making a coloring page for yourself, which it was – the wax separated the different zones, and then she showed me how to “color” it in with fabric dye. I enjoyed that part much more, just playing with color blending, almost exactly like watercolor “wet on wet” technique. And now it hangs in my kitchen, I’m quite pleased.

Then I did woodburning! This was very slow and meditative, and smelled amazing. It was essentially slow drawing. The tool was just a fat pen with a HOT tip on the end, and I liked finding the different pressures and speeds to do the shading and hard lines. I was also very happy that the teacher came back and was like “oh I like your Long’s Peak” – always satisfying to have people see the thing I’m trying to depict. 🙂

Overall, 10/10, will art retreat again.