Last year we visited St Agnes, in Cornwall, on a day when there was a cloudless blue sky and a sea breeze. So for my seascape inspiration I chose two photos of St Agnes beach and a photo of Annie’s ‘Flowers on Coverack Beach’.
I planned to make the sea the main focus with some pink flowers in the foreground.
I have a square white frame, 50x50cm (approx 20″sq) that I wanted to use, so to ensure that my seascape would fit well, I made a paper template to put under the bubble-wrap as a guide for the layout of wool fibres (photo below left).
I made two fine layers of white merino wool fibres then topped them with a third fine layer of pale blue wool fibres to make a base (photo below right).
The fourth layer (photo below left) was just bands of solid colour then I added a fifth (partial) layer of wisps of wool fibres (photo below right) to give the impression of waves and some thinly spread yellow wool blend to look like sand with a length of fancy yarn for the water’s edge…
… and the frilly edges of scrap white felt made the surf (the photo below is after felting).
I was just getting out some pink fibres to make the flowers when my son saw the work-in-progress. I told him it wasn’t finished yet and that I was about to add flowers. He went a bit quiet – he’s not a flower person – then he suggested that I should just stick a surfboard, upright, in the sand. Why didn’t I think of that?
I made some yellow pre-felt then cut a surfboard shape from it. I wetted down the sea and sand before placing the pre-felt on it.
After felting, when the seascape was dry, I added the stripes to the surfboard. Each stripe is just a large stitch of single ply cotton knitting yarn.
The felt that shows behind the white mount measures 38x38cm (approx 15″sq).
I’m glad that the days are long now because it makes photography easier. The seascape frame is deep so it stood, unaided, on my garden table … and the light was perfect!
