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Monet Challenge

Monet Challenge

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I came across a couple of these pieces recently when I was packing up for a craft fair. It’s one of my favourite Challenges (My favourite was Ann’s Stewert Stephenson one) and these are some of my favourite pieces, so I thought I’d do a Throwback Post for anyone who missed it:

I didn’t get a chance to do any felting for a while until this week because we had a ridiculous heatwave here. I did manage to make a few batts for the Monet challenge though. After choosing some of my favourite paintings, or ones which I thought I might be able to use as inspiration, I made a simple montage:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI then messed about with it in Photoshop:

Using this for inspiration I made a couple of green batts; a purpley one; a purple and yellow blended one which looks kind of mustardy/mossy, and a mixed blue one. Looking at Monet’s style he mostly had a straight/dashy style, but some paintings or certain areas of paintings had a softer swirly style. For the first piece I made using the batts I laid out areas of different colours then added softer wispier swirls of wool and fibres:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI made this piece using the batts too. Neither of these first pieces copy Monet, they are just inspired by the colours.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI wasn’t very confident I could do an actual ‘copy’ of a Monet painting, but I thought I’d have a go of at least doing an impression of a Monet piece 🙂  I chose Morning On The Seine In The Rain.

Morning-On-The-Seine-In-The-Rain-largeI was actually quite surprised when this started to dry and it actually looked like something! I don’t know if it’s because I’ve stared at the original so much that I can see the similarity and that it’s meant to be it, but I’m pleased with how it turned out.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAWhen I was fluffing up the fibres for the swirly piece, I thought I might have a go at needlefelting a piece too. Since I had all the colours out, and had really started to like it, I thought I’d do another based on Morning On The Seine In The Rain. I used a piece of thick commercial Merino prefelt as a base, and blended some texturey wools like Icelandic, carded lambswool and Devon longwool with Merino to get the colours and texture I wanted. I like the way this turned out too 🙂

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIf you ever want or need some inspiration to get your creativity flowing, click on ‘Challenges‘ in the Categories drop down menu on the right hand side. We have new ones every quarter, but you might find something you prefer, like this Monet challenge, in our archives 🙂

The Base Makes a Difference

The Base Makes a Difference

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In my Monet Challenge blog post this past quarter, I pointed out I had used a Domestic 56 base without pre-felting it. The domestic fiber is coarser than merino, approximately a 29.5 micron compared to a 19 of the merino. I had a lot of hairiness migrate through the merino and had to shave the piece a couple of times.  I wanted to try a pre-felted base with the same fiber. So, I set out to do another Monet.

I chose Monet’s Water Lillies 3.  Water lillys conjur wonderful memories for me from my childhood summers at my Grandmother’s cottage on a channel off a lake.

Water-Lilies13

Using two layers for the base, I wet felted it and let it dry. I was surprised at the shrinkage even though I did light rolling in all directions before drying. A rectangle turned into a square.

I laid out my design.  I wasn’t terribly happy with it.  I did some needle felting to give the lilly pads more definition.  Here it is before wet felting.

monet 2 before

After wet felting it, I still wasn’t enamored  with it.  I did some more needle felting and it seemed to take on a better life.

Monet 2 layout

The one thing I did learn was that using a pre-felted base of the Domestic 56 made it less hairy.  I didn’t need to shave it at all.  Even though I fulled it the same way I did the first Monet, it wasn’t as stiff.  Both methods had advantages. So, I will continue to experiment depending on the results I want to achieve.

What is your experience with using a pre-felted base of a coarser fiber?

Carding Batts

Carding Batts

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This last weekend I did some carding. I was making Monet batts.

First my daughter and I pulled apart small bits of wool and mixed it up.

mixing colours

Then onto the table and spread out ready for a trip through the carder.

ready to card

This is after the first pass through the carder. I split the batt into layers and put it through again.

first time through

This after the second pass through

second time through

I made 3 mixed colour merino batts

Batts3

 

I recarded some over dyed brown and white Romney wool I had .

Batts2 batts1

 

And one mixed colour Romney batt

mixed batt

They are fun to do and great for felting or spinning textured yarn. I was thinking I didn’t do anything for Felt United Day, October 4, but I guess I did. Did you do anything?

Monet Inspiered Peice for the 3rd Quarter Challange

Monet Inspiered Peice for the 3rd Quarter Challange

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I used the park scenes and the water lilies as inspiration. I had some wool that was just right for making a Monet piece.  It was  “grey” Romney wool I got years ago. It was washed but not carded. In actuality it was brown and white. That was ok I dyed it and carded it and got Monet wool. Each colour had varying shades of the dye depending on how brown or white it had been. Most of this picture is done with that wool. the blue/green is some leftover bits that had been carded together and the path is a striped top that very dark blue with some red. I think it is from Ashland bay I think.  I used a piece of prefelt for the background just so I would have a size to work with.

This is before I wet it down. I really liked it and was tempted to try and put it under glass unfelted.

monet in wool

After wetting and rubbing I rolled it put to pop in the dryer. than went off and did other stuff. I got it out of the dryer this morning and it had come unrolled in the tumbling and came out looking like this.

out of the dryer

I did manage to stretch it all out flat and square. it is approximately 17 inches by 12 inches or 44cm by 31 cm. I quite like it but think I may do some embroidery to define things a little better. The pond is not that bright and  distinctive in reality. I was pleased with the way trees didn’t all melt into one green blob.

dry

 

 

Monet Challenge

Monet Challenge

Comments 25 comments

I didn’t get a chance to do any felting for a while until this week because we had a ridiculous heatwave here. I did manage to make a few batts for the Monet challenge though. After choosing some of my favourite paintings, or ones which I thought I might be able to use as inspiration, I made a simple montage:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI then messed about with it in Photoshop:

Using this for inspiration I made a couple of green batts; a purpley one; a purple and yellow blended one which looks kind of mustardy/mossy, and a mixed blue one. Looking at Monet’s style he mostly had a straight/dashy style, but some paintings or certain areas of paintings had a softer swirly style. For the first piece I made using the batts I laid out areas of different colours then added softer wispier swirls of wool and fibres:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI made this piece using the batts too. Neither of these first pieces copy Monet, they are just inspired by the colours.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI wasn’t very confident I could do an actual ‘copy’ of a Monet painting, but I thought I’d have a go of at least doing an impression of a Monet piece 🙂  I chose Morning On The Seine In The Rain.

Morning-On-The-Seine-In-The-Rain-largeI was actually quite surprised when this started to dry and it actually looked like something! I don’t know if it’s because I’ve stared at the original so much that I can see the similarity and that it’s meant to be it, but I’m pleased with how it turned out.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAWhen I was fluffing up the fibres for the swirly piece, I thought I might have a go at needlefelting a piece too. Since I had all the colours out, and had really started to like it, I thought I’d do another based on Morning On The Seine In The Rain. I used a piece of thick commercial Merino prefelt as a base, and blended some texturey wools like Icelandic, carded lambswool and Devon longwool with Merino to get the colours and texture I wanted. I like the way this turned out too 🙂

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIf you want to join in the challenge, you can comment on any of our Challenge posts and link to your piece or post it on the forum in the thread we have there: http://feltandfiberstudio.proboards.com/thread/1587/third-quarter-challenge