Browsed by
Category: Inspiration

Fossils, Landscape and Sunlight

Fossils, Landscape and Sunlight

Comments 18 comments

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

Comments 28 comments

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.

IMG_3555

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.

IMG_3577

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.

IMG_3585

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

IMG_3578

A reflection of mood.

IMG_3582

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

IMG_3606

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.

IMG_3609.jpg

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

Comments 28 comments

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

Comments 17 comments

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.

IMG_3593

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?

IMG_3603

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?

IMG_3602

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.

IMG_3564

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.

Comments 10 comments

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

Comments 9 comments

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

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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

Comments 24 comments

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.

Dani+Ives_Luna+Portrait
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.

IMG_3267
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.

Marshmallow png
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.

IMG_3268

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!

IMG_3273
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.

IMG_3315

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!

IMG_3270

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

Techniques for Intermediate Felters Class-The Afternoon

Techniques for Intermediate Felters Class-The Afternoon

Comments 19 comments

Last time I talked about the first half of the class, class-the-morning  In the afternoon they did one large sample of many things. They used foam tubes and lots of inclusions. There were two resists sticking up and spikes They added some silk and cotton squares, yarn,  some scrunched up silk and a silk flower.

See the cool little rolling tool I got recently. It’s a little massage roller. This was it’s first try out. It worked really well. I have some other kinds ordered so I will do a post about them later.

  

Here are a couple of shots of me teaching. The left one is talking about adding some scruched up silk and the right one I explaining how you make one of the resists into a flower.

Here Carlene and Jan are showing thier pieces at show and tell at our guild meeting.

and a close up are Carlene’s

We didn’t have enough time to do everything I wanted to do, so at the end I was doing quick how to’s.  The pine needle technique two ways  and I also explained book resists.

So now it’s a matter of deciding what to take out and what to add in for the next time I teach it. There was not enough time. I think adding an hour to the class would be good. I think I will drop the nuno part of the sample to make sure we got to the pine needle part. I am not sure about the book resist. It may take to much time. What would you want to see in an intermediate techniques class?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jan’s 3rd Quarter 2017 Challenge Part 1

Jan’s 3rd Quarter 2017 Challenge Part 1

Comments 12 comments

My friend Jan really got into the 3rd quarter challenge. She worked on it most of the summer and fall. If you have read other posts by Jan you know she is a great story teller. So, I had to break this into 3 posts. This post and the next 2 will take you on a journey with Jan from concept to finished challenge.

3rd quarter challenge part 1 the Plan

I was instantly intrigued by the third quarter challenge. I have always appreciated the aesthetic of Japanese prints and the Hokkaido wave had been particularly interesting to me. A bit strange when you consider I really don’t like getting wet. Ok, I am a bit hydrophobic. When I look at the Wave I don’t concentrate on the impending death of the fishermen in there precariously tipped boats, the fact that mount Fuji may be plunged into unpleasant wetness at any moment but that the repetitiveness of the design on the inside of the wave reminds me of a Japanese umbrella. Umbrellas are good. They keep you from wetness. A giant umbrella in the middle of the ocean sounds almost appealing, as if you might stay dry surrounded by all the wetness.

OK, I have a theme. Now who would need an umbrella in the middle of the ocean? Hmmm. An octopus!

The Great Wave off Kanagawa also known as The Great Wave or simply The Wave, is a woodblock print by the Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai. It was published sometime between 1829 and 1833 in the late Edo period as the first print in Hokusai’s series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. It is Hokusai’s most famous work.

As you may have noticed I tend to do flat pictures with a bit more thickness than flat pictures usually have. So the concept of taking a print you like and using it to inspire something from it but not make a copy will not be a problem. OK wave as umbrella, and octopus holding umbrella. Other elements of the print to work into the finished pieces. The sky, the other littler waves and maybe the boats with fishermen, or maybe not the boats with fishermen. I have nothing against fishermen, I really do like to fish. But I’m not to fond of boats. They are just tempting fate. Why leave nice solid ground if you don’t have to? So let us leave the boats for a later consideration.

I had a plan and all within half an hour of reading the email. A quick sketch (I thought I had lost it but found it inside my new needle felting box. This is why the original idea and the preliminary execution differs quickly. I lost the sketch by putting it somewhere safe.)

Then a trip to the wonderful internet to “acquire” reference photos and do a bit of research.

I’ve got the wave (I found 3 graphics of the wave one with the fishermen very easily visible) so let’s get umbrellas.

Now for some octopuses/octopi.

Phase 1 Planning is complete.

Tidying, Rediscovering, and Inspiration

Tidying, Rediscovering, and Inspiration

Comments 16 comments

I’ve been having a big tidy up this week, so haven’t had much time to make anything. And not having space to make anything is one reason for the tidy up! It’s amazing how just not putting things away properly can soon build up to one giant mess. One of the few positives to tidying up is re-discovering things. The first thing I was happy to find is a chiffon scarf I must have bought over 20 years ago. I don’t think it’s silk, but it really is nice. It looks like it was made from a larger piece:

The second small scarf I found was a silvery grey silk one which was my mum’s. I’ve thought about making a nuno piece out of it:

I bought a few large silk scarves around November last year. They’ve got sequins sewn on, and I thought I’d try one for a nuno scarf. They’re not the kind of thing I’d usually buy, but they were knocked down from £20, to £2!:

And, if you’re like me, a big part of tidying up invoves playing about with stuff you’re meant to be tidying! For some reason I kept a load of little paper hearts from the hole-punch I use on tags:

And then I found a lens from a small kaleidoscope (I used to buy them for photography!), so had to have a play. This is a soft wispy piece I made at the well being centre recently:

And this is some Kevlar fibre/thread:

One thing I did find got me thinking about Ruth’s first Quarter Challenge. Tyvek envelopes. I’ve only played around with them once, fairly recently, and just held a couple of pieces over the gas rings on the stove:

I don’t know what I’ll do with the unmelted ones yet, but they have potential!

If you have any tips for keeping tidy, feel free to leave them!