I’m a member of a local group of artists and makers called Made in Whitstable. We have an annual two-week group exhibition around Easter which has a theme. This year’s theme was Perspectives. Only one piece of work has to meet the theme, with the rest being whatever work we normally make.
I have to admit I struggled a bit with ‘Perspectives’. It didn’t really speak to me. I thought about both visual / architectural perspectives and perspectives as in opinions / points of view. I spent quite a while thinking about sea, water, my viewpoint in relation to water and all sorts of other things but I wasn’t really happy with what I was coming up with.
After much rumination, I decided to do a printed tree picture, but instead of a flat piece of silk below the tree, I’d try to create a simple sense of perspective using strips of different recycled silk scarves.
I picked out a few scarves I’d like to use. They included a couple where I wasn’t sure what the fabric was, so I thought I’d better make a quick sample to test their felt-ability.
I bought this lovely scarf in a charity shop thinking I might make some kind of seed pods with the orange section. I’m pretty sure the orange fabric is raw silk and assume the pale area is a slightly elasticated fine silk. I ironed some of the scrunched (probably silk) fabric and cut out a small rectangle.
The second ‘unknown’ scarf has stripes of dense material and something fine and open-weave. I think the dense sections may be cotton or linen and the open-weave feels like silk. I put a small square alongside the other sample on top of a piece of merino prefelt. I’m rather mean with this type of sample – I do hate to feel I’m wasting materials.
They both felted like a dream so I would definitely incorporate them into my picture.
I had done several very rough sketches to think through potential ‘perspective’ pictures. Having settled on one, I made a rough to-size paper template so I could try out what to put where.
I thought I’d put something on top of the scrunched silk strip so lightly prefelted some fine spotty silk then cut out some oval shapes. I mixed strips of the spotted silk with the ‘unknown’ other fabric. I then cut out leaves from a very fine silk scarf to put larger ones in the foreground with the size receding into the background.
Testing out the layout of different fabrics took a surprisingly long time. How I fiddled about.
When I was choosing from a couple of options I sent photos to my Mum for a second opinion. She’s got an excellent eye and made a couple of really useful suggestions.
Finally happy with my layout (number 3) I carefully transferred the fabric pieces from the paper template onto wool.
I ran a line of dark brown recycled tapestry yarn across the top of the silk-filled area to give the idea of a horizon and could finally get on with the actual felting.
Here’s the felted piece. I was pleased I had mostly kept all the fabric bits in the right places.
All that remained was to dry and iron it, ask my local frame-maker to make a frame (at rather short notice), find & print a suitable tree and put it all together.
The printing process is the scariest bit. Heat transfer printing onto felt is not 100% reliable: sometimes the print doesn’t fully transfer, leaving gaps, the image can transfer but sit too much on top of the felt or it can singe as it transfers. All are pretty disastrous and usually completely ruin a picture. In the past, I have cut up a spoiled picture and turned it into cards. I SO did not want this to happen in this case: partly because I’d already invested a lot of time in this picture and partly because I didn’t have time to make a new picture for the exhibition. My fall-back would either be needle felting a tree over the failed print, or printing a tree onto a separate piece of felt and hand-stitching it into the picture.
I did a couple of test prints on scraps of felt then took the plunge. Fortunately the print transferred well.
I collected my frame and was ready to frame the picture when I realised I hadn’t specified it needed to be a box frame. The felt was thin and would sandwich fine between the glass and the backing mount but I wouldn’t usually mount felt without a gap between the glass and the mount. I chatted with my felting friends (some fellow-bloggers on this site). At their suggestion I considered framing it without the glass but I decided to go with it as it was. Here is a lesson for myself: try not to leave everything to the last-minute, Lindsay. I have had this thought many, many times in my life, but it doesn’t seem to make a lot of difference.
And here it is as part of my exhibition display.
In addition to the wall pictures, on the table I have (back row) mounted prints (left), felt and printed cards (middle), mounted felt pictures (right) and felted glasses cases in the front.
I sold quite a bit of work at the exhibition but not this picture. I’m happy to have it in my stock of felt pictures for other sales & exhibitions. I’m still not entirely comfortable with the standard (non-box) frame but I’ve decided to live with it. Will I learn the lesson of not leaving everything to the last minute? Probably not.