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A difficult Challenge Part 1 and 2

A difficult Challenge Part 1 and 2

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A difficult Challenge Part 1

When the theme for this year’s challenge was announced of Landscape followed by Sea-scape I was very excited. I love landscapes! All those trees, fields, rocks, trees, hills, rocks… OK I live in Ontario just at the edge of the Canadian shield (mountains so old that they are worn down by a glacier to rocky hills lakes and trees) some areas can barely support sheep but I love the look. Not as majestic as mountains or as vast as the prairies but it feels like home. Grate first challenge was easy.

I started thinking about challenge #2, water that has proved to be more problematic.

I went to PEI when I was very young, I think I was 2 or maybe 3? I remember huge tall red sandstone cliffs that towered above my head quite clearly (they are really less than six feet tall). The Giant Adirondack chair I was trapped in and could not get out of! (I have no idea why I did not clime under the armrest I was small enough to fit through there and escape!) I remember being awoken to see the northern lights, but I don’t remember the northern lights.  I am also missing any image of the ocean (Water has always been a bit Traumatic, or maybe Horrific is a better description).

So my first musing over the image of ocean turned out not to be ocean but a river bifurcating over a cliff and falling off the image and into the sea. The format was very small so I could use it as name tag or broach or really tiny landscape.

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1. water flowing over a cliff and falling into the ocean (the ocean is the part cascading out of the image)

 

First draft of sea-scape, the sea is what the river is cascading off the picture into…..ok so that sea is the part you cannot see. Hummm.. This may be a bit more problematic than I first thot.

I realized this is like PEI all over again, my mind doesn’t want to look at the ocean it wants to see the safety of the land.  Well that’s interesting but really I have to turn around and look at all that unpleasant wetness or I am going to flunk this assignment.

I tried my usual creative approach which involves a lot of photo reference gathering. What quality of water do I want to investigate? How do I approach something I don’t really feel comfortable looking at?

Can I approach it by colour? The Prussian blues of the arctic water did appeal but it was more the river running into Baffin Bay or the tiny lake behind Iqaluit rather than the Hudson straits which I had flown over and had held a lot of pan ice.

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2. Arctic Sunset
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3. Arctic Sunrise

I looked lots of images of beaches, I like beaches but only with the shallow parts of the water. I didn’t really find an image that jumped out at me. So I broadened the search. Let’s add some weather, OK storm ocean and beach into google image search…creepy! Oh well I cheer for Vampires (yeah!! non Garlic eaters!!) Defiantly more dramatic, but still having trouble finding an image that will work.

Horrendis wave
Cold Wave
Storm Wave

Horrific waves 4-6

Wild life! I like things that are able to move faster than a geologic time scale! Polar bears (yes l like those), narwhals (interesting horn but not as appealing at the moment), orca… they do make a big splash… ok better from a distance but has potential.

polar bare (staying dry)
Poler bare (needs life jacke)t
Narwall

2 Poler bares and a Narwhal

I noticed most of the images that drew me were looking from the ocean back to the land. If only water was dryer and warmer!!! And maybe more solid.

My other option is to use the fiber I had collected for the project generally and see where that leads me. I have thrums, silk waste in silver and teal, many shades of various types of wool; blues greens rusts yellows ambers purples, handspun yarn, and the rest of the fiber stash to search. If I approach it from colour and texture I may be able to get in the water. (Really it can take me a long time to actually get into the water, I’m on the second page and all I have managed so far is a bit of cost line). This is a very stressful challenge!

Looking at my stash did not lead to any epiphany so back to the internet in hope of tripping over an image that would work.

Sunrise
Sunset

Sunrise and sunset

I found a few more that looked like they were possibilities so I added them to the file. I waited a bit then chose a few to consider further. I finally came to the realization that no matter how dramatic the pictures with waves and storms were I just hated to look at them. witch would make creating a reasonable representation of them very difficult. The pieces with calm water and something that distracts from the ocean were much less stressful to look at.

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Walrus
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Muskox

A difficult Challenge Part 2

I narrowed it down to a bit of ocean hidden behind a walrus and an arctic seen with muskox. I consulted with Elizabeth, who insisted that the original muskox looked like a fat squirrel (it was a view from behind but I didn’t think it looked that much like a squirrel). So I looked back through my reference for a front or side facing muskox.  When threatened, muskox join ranks with any young in the center of a circle, the adults position their horns towards the threat. So I chose the front facing one replacing the butt view.

I used a sharpie to block in the background leaving an area for the muskox to be inserted.

laying in distant sky colours
adding over layers
adding horizen line

I started as you would in a pastel or water colour; working from the background (sky) towards the foreground. Starting with the sky then adding ocean.

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Finally blocking in the land. I added wisps of colour overlaying the base layer to add a bit more depth.

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The original muskox (described as a squirrel)

windswept by cliff
Inland and cold

Options to replace the original – I liked the vertical aspect of the one on the left

I pulled up the alternate muskox on the computer and lay in the general shape in dark brown, adding the lighter areas of feet and horns. Finally the nose was added.

I think it will need a bit more detailing but it’s almost done. I looked again this morning and didn’t like the way the horns were sitting, so puttered with them too. I did a bit more overlays of colour and added a bit of vegetation for the muskox to snack on too. I will likely reassess again but I am happy at the moment.

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It is good to push yourself with challenges, I will try oceans again but I don’t think I am destined to be a famous boat in harbor or storm at sea painter not unless the boat is hiding most of the water or the storm is so far out to sea you can’t see it! I will hopefully take a shorter time to get into the next challenge.

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Inspiration Photos

Inspiration Photos

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The photos of the felt piece I was going to blog about today didn’t turn out, so I thought I’d share some photos I took recently for inspiration. I was up early enough to enjoy some morning sunshine in the back garden, so took lots of photos of anything which caught my attention. The first thing was these little wild geranium flowers which grow everywhere in Spring:

They look nice, but they are really invasive and have a pretty unpleasant smell. I know lots of people hate Dandelions, but I’ve always really liked them. I had no idea the centres looked like this until I got a camera with Supermacro settings:

The next thing was this little glass cabochon. I used it as a weight on a stencil a few weeks ago and it got flecks of spray paint on it:

I’m not sure what this plant is or even if it’s something I bought or something which found its own way here, but it’s another thing whose detail is lost (to me, anyway!) without the Supermacro camera setting:

I’ve taken photos like this before, and I’m pretty sure I’ve shared them on here. This is a leaf from a teasel plant. I love the way it looks when it starts to die/decay:

I love the texture of Sage leaves, especially when they are young:

I’m not sure what is clinging to the ‘hairs’, but here’s a cropped close up:

If any botanists know, please enlighten me! The cat who has adopted us joined me in the garden, she enjoyed rolling around in the dust. She has nice patterns and markings anyway, but the sun seemed to make them more obvious. Even though this is really soft, it reminds me of a hedgehog:

I took this photo because I really like the soft hair behind her ears, but when I looked closer at the photo, I noticed that on just one small part of her head she has lots of different types of hair/hairs:

I only took this photo because I think the cat’s chin is really cute:

But when I looked closer, the fur seemed to be in a kind of pattern, kind of like the pattern of Sunflower seeds or a Dandelion seed-head. I’m not imagining it, am I?

I took these last photos a few weeks ago at the park near the well being centre. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve shared photos of these trees here too, they’re at the entrance and always make me want to photograph them. I thought it was interesting the way the clouds matched up with the trees.

This tree has a really unusual trunk, it seems really fibrous:

There’s a tree behind it which has really interesting seed pods, at least that’s what I think they are! I thought this might be something which Ruth might find inspiration in:

I don’t often sit down and plan a project directly from the inspiration photos I take, but I’m pretty sure the textures, colours and patterns influence my work anyway. Do you take or collect inspiration photos? What do you do with them? Please feel free to use any of these photos for direct or indirect inspiration.

Going Batty

Going Batty

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Last week you saw Jan post about the spin in Wheels on Fire. LINK It was lots of fun and I bought a lovely batt from  Judy Kavanagh etsy.com/ca/shop/JudyKavanagh I loved the colours and it made me think of a wild landscape. I decided to just open it up and felt it as is. Here is before:

And after:

 

I also got this lovely little red batt form Bernadette Quade. I don’t know what I will do with it yet but I like the depth of red. The colour is not good here it is quite red with a little purply blue. There was a picture of her table in Jan post linked at the top. She doesn’t have an online store but I can get you in contact with her if you like.

Then as my luck was in, I won another batt in the door prise draw. Also very pretty and I don’t know if I will pull it apart or felt it as is or maybe even spin some of it. It is from  Creations Christine creationschristine.com/collections/ the batt I won was non feltable so she traded it for this one.

 

Last Saturday was the other spin in in my area. In a small town called Chesterville.  I am lucky I am just about in the middle between both theses spin ins It was there 20th annual spin in. I wanted something interesting to spin.   I was tempted by some “fancier” less blended batts but didn’t think my spinning skill was up to them. I bought a small batt from Judy Kavanagh again. Reds and blues.

This is the first small ball done on Saturday.

Having said that the other batts were to complicated for my spinning ability, I kept being drawn back to this one by Alpaca Tracks. http://www.alpaca-tracks.com/ I reminded me so much of a storm over the ocean.  It has quite a bit of shine too but it just doesn;t sho in the picture. I am not sure if I will use parts of it or do the whole thing adding some sand near the bottom. or use parts of it for sky in other pieces.

 

Then while I was Showing a 4H group how to spin on a spindle and getting them to each spin a small bit for their project binders, my number was called for a door prize. I chose this lovely batt by Celine Paquette of La ferme le moment present. www.facebook.com/artistedelafibre/ part of this one may become the sand with the storm batt above. When I opened it I realised there were 4 lovely wooden  buttons in it too.

I have made a few plainish backgrounds to work on this last while. One I put a blue stream in . and then promptly ripped it off when dry. Why do we always think of water as blue. it is seldom blue. It looks more like a stream now than before. You will have to wait for the next blog post to see it.   Time to get out the needles and start working on the backgrounds.

 

 

 

 

Fossils, Landscape and Sunlight

Fossils, Landscape and Sunlight

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Now that I have completed the fossil piece, I have to decide how to finish and frame it. This is always my least favorite part of the process. I usually just want to do whatever is easiest. Now if I ever made a piece to size specifications, I could use the same backing and frame every time. But I never manage to do that. So I’m always having to look at custom ways to frame or finish. I got a lot of good suggestions from comments on my last post including:

  1. Use a larger matte board so the central piece is smaller than usual in the frame inviting close inspection.
  2. Mount on burlap with frayed edges.
  3. Use a piece of grey slate with jagged edges.

I actually like all of these suggestions but one of the first things I like to consider is the value of the matte or whatever will be surrounding the felt. I have some large pieces of grey scale paper that I use to help make my decision. Unfortunately, the light here has been nonexistent for taking photos. It has been rainy and cold. I finally resorted to taking photos with some can lights to provide the lighting.

Here’s the fossil piece on the grey scale paper from black to white (left to right). In these photos, the medium and light grey look very similar but they are different in person. Which do you prefer? I wish that the lighting was better for the photos, sorry.

I also found this piece of woven grey fabric that has a combination of values from light to dark grey. I already have enough of this fabric so since I am on the kick of “use stuff up”, I may have to go with this one. I didn’t have a piece of slate and haven’t gotten around to seeing if one piece of slate is available at the home/garden store and the burlap I have is a bright, yellow-green. That certainly won’t work.

Up next, I am working on another landscape. This is with some leftover cut pieces and scraps of felt that have various surface design techniques. Right now I am just in the process of laying out the background with a long way to go. I have decided that most of the lines seem too horizontal and evenly spaced and I need to add a bit more diagonal variety. Of course when I add stitching and foreground elements it will change. But back to the drawing board on the arrangement until I’m happy with it.

And since I told you about the poor sunlight available, I thought I would show you these photos off my front porch. I looked out the front door a couple of mornings ago and there was this beam of sunshine on the tree in front. It was amazing and only lasted for a couple of minutes. But I got some good photos. The tree is a larch or tamarack tree that looks like an evergreen but it’s needles turn golden orange in the fall, drop off and then regrow in the spring. They add some glorious color to the landscape. If you look closely in the background of the photo on the left, you will see a turkey family. And I got a closer view of one against the fall colors. He was making all kinds of noise as he seems to have misplaced his family for a moment. Feel free to click on the photos to get a closer view.

More from the Knitting & Stitching Show in London

More from the Knitting & Stitching Show in London

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The last time I wrote I shared some of the artwork I loved at the Knitting & Stitching Show. This time I’m sharing a bit more, with a special focus on my favourite artist this year.

*** Please note: this post will have verbal references to eating disorders in the context of an art exhibit, which some might find triggering; none of the artwork has any explicit imagery related to this mental health issue. ***

Remember Libby Vale, the artist with the “Ironing Bored” in my last post? She also created a doll that reflected our modern human self-absorption. Note the bag full of Stuff You Don’t Really Need in the her hand. This doll was posable and each day would look different.

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I love seeing textile art in 3D so these textures drew me in. I forgot to record who made them.

The next artwork reminds me of Zed’s creations. Do you agree?

More 3D art. I’m always drawn to wire creations, they look so ethereal.

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Now comes the exhibit that touched me the most. As someone who has struggled with an eating disorder in her teens, this was very powerful to me. The work of Caren Garfen gives voice to her former self and to those who can see themselves reflected in her words and creation.

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This size 0 dress tells the story of Anna. It was painstakingly stitched with human hair.

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A reflection of mood.

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The angry voices of the loved ones who don’t know how to deal with an invisible illness

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Caren created a dollhouse reflecting the mood of an anorexic. Everything inside it has a relation to eating. In the middle sits the artist, underweight, with a food-related unfinished artwork, looking lost.

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Finally, a piece of her handmade patchwork blanket. Knowing when to ask for help is what people with a mental illness struggle the most.

I hope you enjoyed this post, even if the last theme was a little heavy. Art isn’t just about the positive side of life, and its role needs to also be one of awareness about what surrounds us. If sometimes you feel you’re struggling – you’re not alone.

A class with Moy MacKay

A class with Moy MacKay

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Last week I had the opportunity to take a 2 day class with Moy MacKay. I went with a couple of friends and we had a great time.  We did the wet felting on day one. We had 2 pictures to choose from for the landscape.

I chose the one the left.

Moy demonstrated and explained to us how to work and what to do. We got to ask questions. She told us to take lots of pictures as we went because you see things in the picture that  you don’t see in just looking at it. Still I didn’t take enough.

First we laid out the background

Then we added the foreground and details. The house is prefelt and the flowers in the front are chopped up curls

We wet them down and gave them a 2 or 3 min rub and then rolled them for about 3 min one way and then the other for another few min and we were done. They are very lightly felted but that’s ok because they are pictures not hats.

That took the morning. After lunch we did another piece, a still life, flowers. We had a vase of red flowers and babies breath to use for inspiration. We were not to copy it but to use it to see how flowers look. You can see it in the group picture. Moy demonstrated again and explained again and then we only had about an hour to put the picture together and then a short time to get it felted before we had to be out of the room for another group.

We started with the table then the foliage and then the vase and then moves some leaves around. Then we added the flowers. The babies breath is nepps.

I quite like it at this stage. Not as much after it was felted.

On day 2 we started the embellishing. Moy talked about and demonstrated needle felting accents and refining the pictures. Also some machine embroidery and stitching.  we could try the machine stitching if we wanted but my picture wasn’t ready for that yet.   This is what they are like now. No where near done but works in progress.

This is after I straitened up the house and removed the mangled fence and added a new one.

This is where it is now.  I added windows and ivy to the house. I removed the cobwebs from the trees. I added some shading to the trees. I added in some stems for the flowers in front and another fence. I think the field behind the left fence needs to be darker because it’s farther away. It doesn’t show well in the picture but right now it is lighter and more yellow than the front field.  It needs a lot more work but I think I know what I want to do to it.

And the flowers. I forgot to take a picture of when it was wet felted but had no embellishments.  But here it is so far. I am not as keen on the flowers but they are alright. I may like them better after I work on them some more. The table needs straitening up and lots more texture. And notice the nepps have stuck. We had chopped up some green fibers as part of the foliage and I think the short fibers under them made them stick.

And lastly a picture of everyone’s works at the end of the second day. the flowers we used are beside Moy.

It was a great class. I think it’s given me confidence to try some more. Jan will be doing more posts for us and I hope she will do one about this class too. She will have taken at least a hundred more pictures than me and be able to show you her works in progress too.

Don’t forget to sign up for the holiday card exchange on the forum. Read all about it here: https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2018/10/10/time-for-the-holiday-card-exchange-again/

 

A brief glimpse into the Knitting & Stitching Show in London

A brief glimpse into the Knitting & Stitching Show in London

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This weekend the biggest fibre and fabric-related event in Europe happened right here in London. Every year I volunteer for my spinning guild and, in return, I get a free pass for all days.

Although the Knitting & Stitching Show is mostly about the sales, there’s always a section dedicated to textile arts. Established artists as well as art school finalists exhibit their work every year, so that’s what I’m sharing with you today.

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Let’s admire this larger-than-life crocheted cow by TOFT. They also had a giant lobster and other animals. How many hours went into each?

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The artist Jenni Dutton had an exhibit about her Mother, called Dementia Darnings. You can imagine by the title how poignant each portrait was – we see this woman depicted from a young age to her final, frail days. I was very moved by it.
Look closely – can you tell how each work was created?

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It’s yarn. You can see it hanging down on the portrait above. Isn’t it wonderful? All this hard work, you can tell the artist loved her mother very much. I felt like hugging her for this dedication.

Next, quilts. I’m not a particular fan of the “traditional” ones but when this technique is applied to create something unusual, you have my full attention.

I’m afraid the pictures don’t do these works justice. Both artists are American I think you can feel a lovely sort of vintage US vibe to these images.

Finally, something that made me smile, by Libby Vale.

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Ironing is definitely not on my list of priorities, so I connected perfectly with the sentiments depicted in this board!

There was a lot more to show, but I’ll leave that to my next blog post. I hope you enjoyed my choice of art. Have you ever been to the Knitting & Stitching Show, or a similar event where textile art is shown? Let me know all about it in the comments section.

Time for the Holiday Exchange Again.

Time for the Holiday Exchange Again.

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Hi readers, it’s that time of year again where we start to think of the holiday season. We like to do an annual holiday exchange over at the forum.  We will be doing a felt card or postcard. It doesn’t matter what you celebrate you can participate. Maybe you don’t celebrate anything , you can still participate. The idea is to have some fun and exchange with a fellow felt lover.
Heres the way it works:

You sign up over on the Forum by November 4th: holiday-exchange-2018 

On November 5 you will be given your  partners name. You contact each other through the private messaging system on the forum to exchange addresses.

You have until November 30 to  work on your card  and then mail it on or before Dec 1 so that it will arrive at your partners before the holidays start.

Once you have your card post a picture of it in the exchange thread on the forum. holiday-exchange-2018

 

If you would like to see more of the pieces from other years here are some links:

holiday-exchange-2017

holiday-exchange-2016

Inspiration

Inspiration

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I was running out of ideas for a blog post since I haven’t had a chance to make or do anything this week, and Ruth suggested an Inspiration post. We’ve had a lot of rain recently, but actually had a couple of dry and even briefly sunny days so I went out in the garden to get some inspiration. I was hoping for a variety of colours and textures, but after a 3 1/2 month long heatwave, brown is the dominant colour in the garden! The first thing which caught my eye was a large teasel plant. The leaves at the base were really interesting:

This one has a spider on it too:

I got a photo of a whole seed head:

And a close up of the spiky edge:

One plant which does have some nice new growth is a large sedum I have. I rescued this from a house at the end of the street about 20 years ago when the previous owners moved out!

This has more interesting colours, the whole top will flower then turn deep red:

I don’t even remember this Centaurea (cornflower) flowering, but it has a really interesting seed-head. I don’t know if it’s just me, but it reminds me of owl feathers

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This is a common ‘weed’ in the UK, a Plantain (plantago). The little seeds look like oats:

I don’t know if you remember Ruth’s post about Fireweed (Chamaenerion angustifolium) recently, but I had quite a few really big ones in my garden, we call them Rosebay Willowherb here. Though I’ve just been looking it up on Wikipedia, and I might have actually had a related plant, the Great Willowherb (Epilobium hirsutum). Either way, both plants have really great seed pods, and seeds, here are some from mine:

The last plant I managed to get some nice photos of is my small Sage shrub. It has really texturey leaves, quite hairy too when they’re young, and they turn interesting colours if they die too:

I hope you enjoyed those photos, feel free to use any for inspiration, and if you do, it’d be great to see what you make!

Painting with wool

Painting with wool

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For today’s blog post, I am sharing with you a workshop I went to, where Dani Ives was teaching how to paint with wool. If you haven’t heard of Dani’s work, I highly recommend you check out her website.

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Portrait of Luna, copyright Dani Ives (taken with permission from the author)

Before we get started, what exactly is “painting with wool?” It is a 2D needle felting process whereby you pick a theme, copy the design onto flat wool sheets or another type of fabric, and then proceed to “paint” it with different colour wools using felting needles.
This term was coined by Dani Ives when she realised she was essentially using wool the same way painters use paint to represent an object.

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My “classmates” before we started

I was asked to bring an image to reproduce. My main goal with this workshop was to learn how to do 2D pet portraits, so I decided to be ambitious and chose a photo of my cat Marshmallow.

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I’m being ambitious but not overly so – her eyes are closed

After transferring the image onto the felt fabric with an ordinary pen, it was time to pick the appropriate colours to use. I confess this is the part I have the most trouble with, because you have to think of the colour not only “as is” but also have a little sense of how it will look after it’s been blended with the others around it.

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We then proceeded to apply the wool onto the surface and needle felting it in place. You need to keep the reference photo at hand and look at it often, as it’s very easy to get carried away and start using artistic licence – you don’t want to do that when you’re going for a faithful reproduction!

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There’s more hours put into this than I want to admit

This is a slow, laborious process. Obviously you will get quicker as you become better but I sure took long to reach the above phase.

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This is my current progress. It’s slowly coming together. I can’t wait to see this finished.

Finally, I had to share my fangirl moment, a picture of me with Dani Ives herself!

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Have you ever done any 2D needle felting? Let me know how it went for you in the comments section. Thanks for reading!