Mekong Memories

Well I am coming to the end of 4 months of sunsets which has been really enjoyable. Now it's crunch time I must bring  together the dying , the painting , the felting, and the monsters.  In one big picture.

I have at least one limiting factor that's the size of my table. It's actually pretty small , but the biggest I can fit into my little attic felting room. Ikea best. So my big picture is limited to the height of the wide of my table , because I cannot look at it sideways and make sense of it. And even with this size I have had to gaffer tape two sheets of bubble wrap together. Big enough I think !

I want to incorporate every fabric and stitch I know. Over kill ! I know  Less is more maybe....

Planning is required. I am an bit of a planner at work , but a hopeless planner at home . I get carried away and ignore whatever little plan I ever had. 

I forget I am supposed to photograph every stage

I forget which fabrics and colours I had planned 

I forget where things were suppose to go

and I use what comes into my head. 

 

This piece requires discipline ! so I make a plan and a picture of the final idea. . Do I stick with it ? Mostly , just a few elements of artistic license, small developments and enhancements.  Is this allowed - I hope so.

So here is the final piece

 Did all the planning work -  I think so. 

To me its very evocative of the Mekong , where of course  it all started.  Of the colours in the sky , the swirling heat and insects, water everywhere in sight, the bright coloured temples  and the smells.  It makes me want to get the incense out.

Making monsters

That's what I have been doing all week, making felted monsters!

                       

I have lived in the Netherlands for more than 3 years and I have a long way to go before I am a fluent speaker.  Some Dutch words  just don't stay in

 my head, and other I can't forget.

MONSTER is unforgettable, it's translation is simply - sample. 

It's far more dramatic a word to me than samples, far more exciting, and definitely the right word in this case, for my monstrous felted monsters. 

I have been incorporated threads fibres and fabrics, ranging from silk to linen into small felt monsters . Some are from my dying and some yarns from my extensive knitting yarn stash. I have been trying out the impact of lying the fibres in different direction to find it really makes a massive different.  To both the final size of the felt monster and to the threads and fabric , which are either pulled in two directions or just one.  Both directions gives a more compact and effective monster.

Thread on the surface are my favorite effect. You can see here the way the silk threads concertina up , the wool sinks into the felt and becomes blurry and the cotton thread looks great like waves on the sea.

So now having finished testing, there nothing for it I have to make a final sunset piece how scary!