A fantasy fish and a find

A number of months ago I was asked by one of my daughters if I could make a felted fish. I was pretty vague about by capabilities at the time . I knew if I was going to make a fish, it would have to be a fantasy fish , as making replica sea bass or trout is not for me. I actually knew I could make a fish I just did not feel inclined to do so until this week. When perhaps due to the dismal cold weather , I thought , why not try .
So here he is . One crazy fantasy fish . Just a prototype you understand. I will make the rest of his aquarium friends shortly !

And on a completely different track , I bought a little treasure trove this week. In the UK charity shops are quite a big part of all the high streets, here in the Netherlands such shops are very rare. There place is taken to some extent by the house clearance stalls on the market. Many strange bargains are to be had on these stalls , and you never know what you will find.
Last week on one of these stalls I found this.

The little sticker ' witte knoppen' means white buttons.

I thought these white buttons were perhaps a treasured collection made over years , now sadly unwanted. So I bought them for 3 Euros and I have brought them home to treasure , and maybe add to a few felted projects.

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Focus and finish on Friday

Focus and Finish was a slogan from one of my recent work locations and I think this is what I need with regards my felting activities. I have done such a lot of experimenting and have just so many ideas of what I might make incorporating this experiment and that experiment into but I never do it.

So on my first focus and finish friday I set off to finish the felt and Shetland tweed jewellery I started at Christmas.

Done

I stopped talking about my framing ideas and actually finished some felted pictures in box frames.

Might needs some further improving but in reality done.

I also finished my stitching sampler. I have to keep up with my course work !

Great progress , but then yesterday over a coffee with a dear felting friend , Els, who was telling me about the new Fiona Duthie on line class , a whole load of ideas came into my head and today I am again back to the experiments again . But maybe it can work , have focus and finish Fridays and play with felting experiments the rest of the time.

 

 

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White revisited

Almost two years ago on 15th September 2011, I wrote my first blog. I was Very apprehensive. I am not sure what I was frightened of. I have found that as a blogger I can be totally anonymous . I would like a few more readers and comments but mostly I am happy to remain anonymous. Fame has yet to come my way.

My first blog was about a flat piece of white piece of felt, I made to prove , to Artybird , that I could make felt. . Two years later I think thats well proven. I am as hooked as ever on felting with all of its possibilities . Probably more so, with my head brimming with felting ideas , and a small studio in active use, full of fibre, drawings and pieces of fabric.

 

I reflect on my first white piece today , not specially as it is near its two year anniversary, but because I have made a white sculpture that am especially pleased with. I have made many felts during my two years that I am proud of, but not usually just it white. Don't ask me what it is , its just a felting exploration into vessels and sculpture.

So here is my sculpture . She is trying to find somewhere comfortable to live.

After my first tentative white felting piece almost two years ago , I am still an Artybird felter still learning, still blogging about it and still loving it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Experiments

On Friday I spent a lovely day felting with a friend. In fact the friend who taught me to felt. Truthfully we spent most of the day talking so we were not so productive in terms of felt actually made but we shared many ideas on how to do things . We discussed the incorporation of stones and pebbles , under here are some shiny glass stones. It will be interesting to see how they glint though when it is felted.

We did a small test of using prefelt under fabric to create bubbles.

This has worked I think, and probably works better if you use felt instead of prefelt. Eventually this will become a hat.

The remaining question for Friday was how to make waves in felt on a small scale . It is quite easy to visualize how to do this on a huge felted piece . Here is an example we like.

You can see more like this at http://www.annekecopier.nl

But how to make the same effect on a small scale. I thought with use of prefelt and embellishing but I am not sure this would give sharp enough lines.

Meantimes I have a draft brief from a very fussy client , myself , to complete for my course so I think that takes priority for now and waves will have to wait. But if we could crack it it could fit very well with this years Felt United's theme of water.

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Colour blindness

Well I think I am going to have to go colour blind.

I need to make a prefelt picture based on river edges in fully saturated colours. Well such a thing does not exist in the natural world. I have lovely pictures of rocks and Autumn leaves with swirling water, and drippy moss covered rocks with ferns hanging over them. Which need to be depicted in the colours from a rainbow and using colour values instead of shades and tones. I really do not understand the advantages of this colour value approach. I know Henry Mattise used it , but I am not sure I am up to it.


It calls for a radical approach. First I must forget the natural colours.

Orange leaves will become red , browny rocks will become warm yellow with blue to show the texture and the moss. The water needs to stays warm blue with cold blue and cold yellow to give movement.

Here is what is looked like in real life.

A painting , trying to get a grip of my colour blind scheme, and cheating a little bit by using white.

The completed prefelt. For me the beauty of felt is the way it blends together , when only prefelted this has not happened yet. So this is definelty not my favorite piece of felting .

 

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Avoidance strategies

Well I can't put it off any longer. I have to put pen or paint to paper for real. Enough , enough of my avoidance strategies. I have a A2 sketchbook. Right hand side for painting and left hand side for felt samples and I have an A4 notebook for analysis ,record, notes, ideas and digital images. So what is the problem , well.........

I am just used to felting, taking photos and adding them to a file, editing the text until I am happy with it and then sending it off for assessment.

Level 2 and I need to write in a book!!!. This seems I bit backwards to me. :(

My problems with this are : well for a start I don't like the look of my writing and then I can't spell, and I can never keep hold of the same pen for more than a day , so the ink colour changes all the time, and...... No that enough crazy reasons . I must stop procrastinating and get on with it.


So today , in faint pencil writing I wrote title, on the first page , ( not the actual title you understand just the word title) and I wrote river on the second and three page of my A2 book. I intend to paint a river and add photos of all my river bank inspirations on the banks - one day. This is OK , as I do not yet know what they all are yet. Don't laugh it's a start but I did not continue to page 4. I went and researched Henry Matisse , artist and Jenny Cowern, feltmaker instead.

But I did write in my notebook . I wrote down where all my supplies had come from, so that I do not forget and can restock. I stuck in samples of my fibres , and I made a fibre rainbow. This actually took a huge amount of effort of hand carding , so I am quite proud of it.

Here it is and below is the samples in the book. Just to prove I have written something in my notebook.

Tomorrow I will, I really will paint some leaves and ferns in my sketch book.

 

 

 

 

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Leaves

I have spent the last week studying autumn leaves , trying to find some that meet the specification of being in clean saturated colours in red, yellow, blue , orange ,green or purple.

This is the instruction from Kate for items to first paint and then felt. Well first find the items . Most of river banks are not very portable , and there are no flowers at this time of the year. So I decided on leaves. What I knew, what everyone knows, is that the leaves look glorious en mass on the trees, and the ground , with beatiful shades of yellows, oranges, browns and reds. What I have discovered is that look up close and the individual leaves are twisted and full of holes and rarely just one colour. Of course this is not really as surprising as they have been siting in the weather for months. What I have also discovered is that if you search out some beautiful specimens and bring them home to paint, within hours they are completely dehydrated, curled up, and not the beautiful specimens you thought. I tried pressing , this worked reasonably well, for some kinds of leaves, but somehow in their desiccated state , they seemed very lifeless.

So this has had to become a speed challenge , call it speed painting. Pick the leaves , close to home , rush home, photograph immediately, for a record, and then paint. Not a very relaxing occupation for someone who is a bit of an amateur painter.

Here are some examples

Different techniques, from careful painting on the right, to reckless dabbing of colour in the left.

A magical mirror image !

So that the painting items challenge accomplished I think. What will be next?

 

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Time for some reorganization

I have decided it's time for some reorganization . I have built a chaotic collection of fibres , now residing in two towers of Ikea boxes and numerous tins, recycled takeaway containers and boxes containing small precious items.

 

I have a range of dyed fabric and fibres . I have lot of white yarns and fabrics that could be used for dying. I have balls of yarns that can be incorporated into felt and I have a range of silk fibres and wastes. Not to mention paper, paints, pens, knives,scissors, threads, beads, and books. Try as I might everything is always lost. So whilst in a lull before I can make the final items for my course ,as I need yet more supplies I decide to have a clear out is needed.

But where to start. Not with my precious equipment , reference books and textiles, and junk , that might be useful one day. But with all the other stuff that's occupying space in my little attic room.

First the exercise bike. That can go to the spare room. Easy. Done.

Next the futon, Can we do without this? I think we can as we now have a spare bed, and we do not get so many visitors. What to do with it. I know recycle to one of the daughters who is about to move. She seems interested, demands photographs.

 

Probably she will have it . Well there is one option , in two weeks time , when we can take it on the ferry to England. Only snag she will not have her new house by then. We can work something out I am sure. She already has stuff stored at numerous locations , one of them can be persuaded to just squeeze in a futon, alongside a bureau and a settee for a few weeks.


So I have not actually reorganized anything much , just have a plan to make more space , which I can then fill with more Ikea boxes and maybe some labels so that I can find things.

 

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Trying to make a Bowl

Well what I have really been trying to do is felt a bowl , but I have been having a few problems.

I thought a bowl depicting a misty Dutch polder winter scene , would ideally match the colours of my Gotland fibre bought from Woolfest. I made some dark prefelt , cut out some trees and a couple of birds.

Here they are ready for felting in. The last time they were ever seen.

I have used a resist many times but this was going to be my first experience of using a ball and bouncing to felt the fibres. I was a little minimalistic with the amount of fibre I used. Far to minimalistic.

After the felting started I realize that I had been just too mean with my precious fibres and not only had I felted a holey bowl , but my trees and birds had completely vanished. The weight dry was only 37 g just not enough fibre.

What a disaster.

Thinking about it I decided , more fibre and only use the darkest for the trees and the lightest of the sky , plus lots of white silk fibres behind the trees and forget the birds!

The final result.

Better

but

the trees are still virtually invisible and although there are no holes there are some very thin patches. Now I have manged to used 65g of fibre. Still not enough I reckon I need between 80-100g . I am really not sure why I have lost the trees in the mist. Perhaps it's the bouncing.

Unfortunately I now have not got enough fibre to try again. Mayb it's time to ask Artybird for some advice.

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Needling

Needle felting requires a barbed needle to be pushed through wool fibres, tangling them together . In my mind, until recently , needle felting was for making fairies, gnomes and animals or emergency repairs to sort out thin areas of wet felted prices. Not my thing at all. But I was wrong.

In the last few weeks I have discovered what happens it you combined needle fleeting , prefelt and fabrics with wet felting. It is a truly wonderful combination. You can build texture , make three dimension structures and incorporate all kind of fabrics.

Here are few examples of my exploration.

Starting with just white and getting a feel of pleating.

 

 

Adding colour and some points.

 

 

 

Lots of colour and fabrics , with pleats and points and spikes

 

I love these effects and will definitely be trying needling again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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50 shades of .......

Brown

A small clutch bag made as one of the last assignments of my course. Incorporating merino wool and wendleysdale curls, all in beautiful shades of brown.

Simple but effective.

I like my shades of brown but I don't think it will raise millions or a cause baby boom unlike it's infamous namesake

 

 

 

 

 

Sharpless

Stewart Sharpless was a surveyor of nebulae. He first published his work in 1953 .

A nebulae is a interstellar cloud of dust , hydrogen , helium and other ionized gases. The starting point and the ending point of stars and planets in the solar system. Really he was an astronomer. His images and those of others which have followed him are truly amazing. They capture the tattered remnants of stars , supernova explosions , solar dust clouds etc. Most of these events have taken place 1000s of years ago , but are so far away , they have taken light years to get here. The images are taken by telescopes such as Hubble.  Here is just one example



http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/ESO-The_Omega_Nebula-phot-25a-09-fullres.jpg


The imagines depict the colours of the elements that are emitted during the explosions. Blue oxygen , and green is hydrogen. Red is nitrogen and helium is violet. Perhaps these chemicals names and their associated colours is what attracts me so much to these pictures, or perhaps its because it all happened so long ago.  I also love the names, Omega, Pelican, Trifid, Barnard's Loop, Cygnus and Deneb are just a few.

I discovered all these wonderful images as I researched the theme of the dying of the sun,

I hope to turn some of them into felted pictures.

My plans are in place , and I have enough fibres and beads I hope and the pictures will be made shortly.   The deadline is the 3rd August.

 In the meantime here's a few pictures of test pieces.

And some carded fibre and silks ready for laying out into a picture.

Photography or Physics

As a child I was exposed to the mysteries of photography through my father , who was a keen amateur .Carefully setting his exposure and his F stops and then developing his own photographs in our blacked out kitchen. This was the bit I enjoyed most as in the dark , the prints emerged. It was very complicated and exciting. Thanks to the developments in electronics, I have since become a point and shoot photographer. Today my husband is heavily into his photography , but now not only do I have the F stops to contend with there is also a million adjustments possible via the computer .

I was quite content with my old camera except for one thing , it really ate batteries. So when I wanted to use it I was forever running down the road to buy batteries , as I couldn't usually wait for the recharger to work. I was a serous risk to the environment. I therefore requested a new camera for my birthday. Thinking again simple point and shoot. This was not possible . There was a perfectly serviceable , high spec Lumix going spare. It just wasn't quite up to the photographer's standards and I was his excuse for a new one!!. So I am having a trial of it and I cautiously asked for some advice on photographing my felts.

I wanted a normal picture on a nice background , some photos of the detail and a photo showing what the piece would look like framed. Simple ?. Well we got the light right and decided automatic plus a bit a computer adjustment of brightness and contrast was all the was required. Thank goodness, we didn't need to go through the F stop theory again . We did have to get out the super deluxe tripod , but that's easy to work.

Then we came to photos of the framed pictures. A big problem of squareness emerged. No matter how carefully we set up the angles between the sophisticated tripod and the picture hanging temporaliy at a crazy low height on the wall, the frames all looked cockeyed. No solution was possible. Until we had a brain wave , forget the wall and all those complicated vertical hanging mechanisms. Just lay the framed picture on the floor , and pretend its the wall. I think it's a paralax probelm. Physics not photography. And the solution requires no photography knowledge at all.

So here a selection ofmy attemptand the question is wall or floor?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Right Royal Do

This week I have been in the UK and watched the appearance of flags ,and bunting every where

 

I especially like this window display. Very innovative , wouldn't you just love those Wellies.

 

 

Alongside this there are just so many events planed for the forthcoming weekend. Where I am staying there will be a play , a concert, childrens sports, a BBQ, a Hog roast and an ABBA tribute band.This is just a small place .

 

 

Imagine what it must be like in London, with the flotilla and free concert with all the great British stars.

 

Whoa this is some kind of celebration . I guess you don't get so many opportunities as a country to celebrate 60 years reign of a queen, so you should make the most of it. I do remember when in 1977 , the 25 year reign celebrations coincided with the week in which I was 21 . There were some good celebrations then as well.

 

All this patriot fever in the air was beginning to effect me. It was a rainy morning , and my thoughts turned away from walking and to felting. Just on a small scale . I had been given some fibres from world of wool for my birthday , with a goodies bag containing yes you guess red, white and blue . I had a small piece of bubble wrap, a rolling pin and one large plastic bag . Was it possible with this limited equipment to felt. yes of course it is. So here it is my own felted flag

 

 

I really feel a part of it all.

 

Dying again

Well here I go dying again , and this time I can't be banished to the garden as I need to heat everything up to boiling point. I have a brand new, to me, pan to use bought for euro 2.50 from the local charity shop. 

So collect my BFL fleece, Shetland white snd grey fibre and merino fibre , merino half felt, silks, an alpaca yarn , some yarn of unknown origin or fibre , but wool I think and extra special lace weight Jamiesons shetland yarn .



Trial weight 80 g. Near enough to 100g for an engineer to be perfectly satisfied.

What colours to dye. Well I was very uncertain , especially when I thought how the planed second and maybe third dying would turn out. But in the end I I decided on scarlet ,yellow and green, 

Wet out fibre.

Place it in the pan. 

Bring to the boil, slowly , how slow is slow. 

I have no idea, but I think on my lowest setting it would never boil. 

So I turned it up to middling. 

After boiling turn off and sprinkle the dyes. 

Quite simple really!

All without dying the kitchen .

The first batch

LOVELY

The second batch is more muted

but still interesting.


The third is is all too muted for me and its  time to stop , before I dye any more of my precious fibres mouldy looking pinky grey.

Lot of felting opportunities ahead!.