Tuesday 24 December 2013

Christmas Trees

This my 100th blog.

I would never have imagined that was possible when I started on my felting journey. Thanks to Els for getting me started and Kate at ArtyBird who has taught me such a lot over the last two years. Thanks also to everyone who reads my ramblings. If you could leave me a comment I'd be delighted!

I have been felting Christmas brooches.

My first two have become part of my Christmas wreath.

The one I will be wearing on Christmas day.

Happy Christmas to you all. :)

 

Sunday 15 December 2013

Versatility

Still working with the theme of lattices, I decided to try and make a vessel.

I kept with the brown , orange, grey and green theme that I had used for my flat pieces and used a resist previously used to make some small vases. I incorporated some synthetic chiffon into the piece trapped between prefelt and fibres.

Here is the the starting point.

It was really hard to get this lattice to meld together and I really should have thought to keep all joins and ends away from the edges of the resist. The shape got a bit out of control , during the felting process and was only tamed by first drying the piece around a glass jar and a then couple of discrete stitches.

Looking at the finished piece I thought it was missing something, so I decided to make some cords and weave them through the lattice. The final effect is quite bizarre but I like the idea that I have used one resist to make such constrasting pieces.

The original vases

 

The crazy lattice version

The versatility of felt .

 

 

 

 

Sunday 8 December 2013

Lattices

I have this week been making lattices based loosely,very loosely on my drawings.
I have been experimenting with felting by hand , and also in my washing machine and tumble drier.
I am quite pleased with my first experiments.
Felted by hand
Felted in the washing machine.
Felted in the tumble drier.
I then went on to try incorporating some fabric, synthetic chiffon and a piece of sari silk , and also prefelt to make this piece, which just cried out for a small bead to finish it off

Sunday 1 December 2013

Permanent

The start of year 2 of my Artybird course has a lot of drawing assignments. This is doubly challenging for me as I am a beginner in drawing and as my theme is river edges, they are not very transportable. While approaching these challenges I started with the warm up to music exercises. Charcoal in hand blindfold on music blaring I scribbled away . My two choices of music Hallelujah sung by KD Land and You overtake me by The flaming lips. If you know these tunes you will be able , I hope to identify the drawing which goes with which music.

Next more music , eyes open , draw what you hear in white wax . This is of course virtually invisible so overall you are nearly as blind as before. I did learn from my first attempts that less is probably more , as if you scribble in time to fast music for 4 minutes there is no white space left.

Next wash with diluted ink to reveal the masterpiece and then add lines to bring it all together. So far so good. I was quite please with my piece so far.

 

Finally used diluted bleach to remove lines in the wash and ink as a final layer of detail. Well ok , I give it a try , still playing the same piece of music by the way , nothing happens. Can bleach stop bleaching , age and stop working????? I don't think so. Then it came to me, permanent ink . I had used permanent ink . I had not really thought about it just used a bottle of black ink. Totally impervious to fading naturally or with bleach. So it's back to the drawing board and the music.