Tree Branch Progress and Shopping.
I have moved forward a little on my tree limb. I decided to go with a grey sky as a background so that I had more choice with colour.
I added a branch in brown It isn’t as flat a brown as it looks in the picture but I think I need to add a different brown to it. I will work on that.
Then I sketched the branch to think about colours. I decided on an orange central vein. That is probably not the right name for it but it is what I can think of to call it. Then a purple fuzzy haze with flowers in it. and some idea of budding leaves.
So far people here like the pink ones. I am not sure. Which ones do you like?
After searching my stash for another brown to go with my branch I had nothing. So it was good timing that there was a fibre event near me called For the Love Of Fibre. This is its second year. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1167963160700589
I was looking for brown but it seems I turned the wrong way went in and ended up in Top of the Whorl Spindles https://www.facebook.com/katspindles She had no brown wool but she had these amazing sample boxes that are just the right size for me.
I wandered around and stopped at the Black Lamb https://theblacklamb.ca/ They have lots of wool but not the right brown so I got a piece of Black Felt (it’s more than prefelt but less than felt) It is thicker than the prefelt or felt you typically see. In the picture, it looks like there are lots of white hairs in it but that is just what it picked up in the stack of prefelt. I think if I run the lint roll over it, it will be good. They also gave me a size 40 spiral needle to try out.
Then after doing a full circuit of the room just to the right of the entrance, there was Farfelu Fibreworks https://farfelufibreworks.ca/ and she had the perfect brown. It is a little darker than it appears in the picture but lighter than the pencil roving in the picture with it.
It is Finnish wool so I was surprised at how soft it was. I asked her later and it is a lamb fleece. I asked people at the guild social to guess what it was I got superfine merino, alpaca and angora as guesses. I will have to see how it wet felts as well as needle felting. I think I will be wanting more so naturally she lives on the other side of the province. Oh well, maybe we can get her to come for our guild Sale and Exhibition in November.
1) small grey 4-door Kea Soul with Glenn bringing in as much as he could carry each trip. The parking space is still covered in snow and the Dairy Queen on the other side of the street is not yet open.
2) clustered around or on the table outside the studio; 12 giant zip lock bags, 4 large bags, one file-holding plastic box, and Glenn placing the last 2 mid-size clear ruff totes on a round plastic-topped table. There are “caution wet floor” signs in the foreground and off to one side.
3) Classroom set up with each student’s notes, foam pad, frame, and needles set out at their place. To the right are examples of my work (including the Mr. and Mrs. Mer to show 3D Dry Felting). In the background, Glenn is reading and you can see a smaller table full of other supplies we will need as well as a 5-foot table overflowing with bags of wool. (There are a couple of bags sitting on my walker).
4) Close up of examples of 2D and 3D needle felting and 3 books (Art in Felt and Stitch, Jaana Mattson’s Landscapes in Wool: The Art of Needle Felting and Painting With Wool Landscapes) I had brought for the students to look at.
5) Three bins and a bag of other things the students might need or could try. Fake clover tools, bags of scissors, extra needles, pins, small pet brushes that work like mini carders, and a bag of permanent markers are arrayed on the table. There are also a couple more small samples of felting and using different types of backing or ground felt.
6) 13? Bags of wool on a five-foot table overflowing with one on the floor and two bags on my walker.
7) Well-padded rolling desk chair with a green and black pillow sits behind a folding table with all the students’ supplies.
8) A close-up of one of the student’s workshop supplies, with various candies and chocolates for stamina (keep watching the pictures and you will see more of the candy selection).
9) Student with ocean view with lots of blues teals light teals, grey and white wool strewn around. There are is also a package of rockets candy rolls in the foreground
10) The second Ocean image again has fibre strewn around it. In the foreground, my male cardinal on a branch, using the template method for transfer. Like Watercolour painting, layers of thin colour for the background and a thicker more like acrylic approach to the bird.
11) Student working on their background behind the tree first. This time the fibre is a mix of white, grey, green-grey, light blue and brown with gray. In the foreground there is the green handle of the clover tool rake (originally designed to clean a clover brush) but works very well to hold down the wool as you felt, it keeps your fingers away from the pointy end and less bloodshed.
12) The second tree image is having its fence added. in the foreground are works in progress of a night winter tree and on the cheap Dollar Tree craft felt a pair of sheep (you can just see the eye) and a pair of hand carders sitting on a copy of the student’s 21 pages of notes. Next to that is a brass nautical calliper, a wooden frame with an XXL project bag and a box of mini boxes of smarties (candy-coated chocolates).
13) The first tree picture, Using a 5×7 opening to check the framing of the image. Behind the image and card stock mat is the foam kneeling pad that we were using as a felting surface.
14) The second tree picture, held up to get a quick check for position in the mat.
15) a very active roiling sky with sea and beach underneath, there is a seagull added to the right side.
16) a turbulent sky and sea with a beach in the foreground.
17) An hour in on a second image of a sheep in a snowfield and snowy sky, sitting in a card stalk mat
