Transformations

In 1882 John Constable painted some cirrus clouds using oils. The original is in the V&A, Heres a link. 

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O82649/oil-painting-study-of-cirrus-clouds

In 2012, only 130 years later,  I attempted to copy this painting using pastels. Not quite my first time using pastels , but I am a real novice.

Then I made a felt picture using merino batts. I have used merino tops many times, but never batts before. They are very fine short fibres randomly mixed,like fluff, rather than lined up neatly as they are in a top. Interesting different, one I need more practice with !!

I then photographed this felt picture and printed this using my ordinary printed onto silk. I never even knew this was possible. 

It is not as clear as it would be as a photograph but recognizably,upside down, I think.

Finally, I felted the silk using some merino tops , yellow , white and blue fibres. I mixed some white and blue fibres together with my carders for the background. The shrinkage of the silk gives a wonderful crimped effect - unfortunately some of the colours have been lost.  

Transformed from oil on canvas,via the V&A website, to pastels on paper, to felt, then via the computer and an inkjet printer to silk and then shrunk into a small silk and felt picture, 130 years after the original was made.  

Bizarrely this small size felted silk is almost the same size as Constables orginal oil!

Found Items

Make a nature chaos collage from found items. What a challenge! 

First I had to determine something that means nature chaos to me. Well there are lots of things, but I decided to use something that I saw whilst walking on a beautifully sunny April 1st. Should it be the rocks, or the ragging streams or the bogs.  No I decided it should be the gnarled and twisted moss covered roots and branches if a very old tree.

Could this be a mistake as there is a lot of chaos !! 

I searched for found texture.
First binder twine picked up in a field, and twigs in various sizes from some spring cleaning in the garden. 

Old, but clean , pan scrubs, and extracted from the recycling some disposable contact lenses packing -  always good to recycle a bit of plastic in my line of business! 

In the midst of my searching I was given a present,  with some squishy packing material,  just the thing I was looking for to make some bark. 

Tooth picks, I thought  would make little twigs as they are quite strong and not likely to disintegrate.

A few ribbons and short cords, cut off some labels. 

So far so good, enough to start gluing?

Here is the work in nearly finished, perhaps I should have waited until I had it all collected, but I quite like the evolutionary aspects of finding something and sticking it on and as currently it looks nothing like the picture,  I have a long way to go!

Felting Fantasies

Have I broken free from the constraints of deluges and sunsets ? 

 I have and I spent a happy day , with a good friend,  just making the felt that I felt like making. Freedom ?  It was not completely spontaneous as I had done a little planning  even making a drawing from my inspiration.

I wanted to incorporate beads in the work through the technique of knitting , so they would nestle in the felt , not sit on the top. I used my wonderful Shetland Tweed yarn from Harris for this. Knitting thin yarn on big needles with random beads  - yes I can do this and talk and watch the TV , as is really does not matter what it looks like.

 I wanted to try combining Shetland fibres with Norwegian fibres. Sherland for the backgound hill and Norwegian for the textures and colours of the hillside. I wanted to use prefelts for the structure and deliberately make a very uneven edge. So I spent a few hours preparing , prefelts and knitting fine Shetland . Not to mention the time dying scrim cotton yarns and silk and stiching textures into them.

Well I really got carried away it must have been the wonderful spring weather.  

Shetland base, knitting with beads , lots of Norwegian wool , and silks on the top.  Heres my inspiration.

And the final felted effect

I am pleased . what do you think.?

Crinklely clouds

The trauma of the missing vivid violet was eventually resolved by a home made and not so vivid purple. After a lot of tracing and transferring of one or two lines at a time I was close to the final intended effect. I am sure it was worth the effect, because after crinkling all defects were well disguised.

The finished and slightly wobbly printed polyester organza had to be felted. I had tried to felt polyester before with no success so I knew be it needed a lot of persuasion to felt.

So I laid out a few purple , to make the point , merino lines and then random white blue face leicester fibres. With lots of cold water and soap I eventually persuaded the odd fibre to struggle its way though the polyester and start to bring the whole thing together. What a lot of hard work.

Eventually it looked kind of laminated and normal felting with warm water could commence. I think it was worth all the effort to laminate it because when it started to felt , I was suprised that all the lines became zigzags surrounded by crinkles. Quite a cloud like texture if not cloud like in colour.

I am quite pleased with it,although its shape is a bit random ,  but I am not sure Constable would recognize it.

The mystery of the vanishing vivid violet

Well spring is here and colour has returned to my life inspired by any one of constable clouds paintings and he painted a lot of them. After trying out with crayons I was ready to progress to using fabric transfer paint for reverse printing onto polyester. Interesting idea,  your painting layers become reversed , when you use a hot iron to transfer from the paper to the fabric. 

Inspired by the clouds and the descriptions on the small dye pots I painted away . It was a bit disconcerting that the colours on the paper were not a very good match to the description on the tins. Vivid violet was more like a dull grey and lemon was more like a dirty mustard. But I was completley confident all would be well after the ironing.

Here is the finished painting laid out ready for the transfer. Not as vibrant as the descriptions would lead you to believe, but I was happy with the composition and my imagined finished effect

Now ironing is definitely not my favorite activity. Still all for a good cause. I ironed away taking great care not to disturb the two layers and smudge the whole effect . Eventually I dared to lift the corner to test if it had worked. Yes and no. I had lemon , red , blue , orange , but no sign at all of the vivid violet

I have no idea why. I am completely at a loss as to how to retrieve the situation. Even if I can discover why there is no possibly that I can line it all up again an complete another marathon ironing session. What a mystery. Here is my rather gappy finished piece.   If you have any suggestion of a solution I be happy to hear your ideas.

Deluge , no its a raging torrent

With my natural wools experiments behind me,it was time to turn my exploration of Leonardo's deluge and the natural fibres into a piece of art. Use any skill learnt so far it said it the brief!

Well that many things and not all applicable to natural wools and a depiction of a deluge. 

Natural wools , natural protection agianst a deluge. Think of all those poor sheep out day and night in all weathers even deluges. I wanted my piece to be as big as possible, the limit being the size of my small ikea table. It needed to have lots of texture and must use merino, Shetland and BFL fibres in colours I actually had not colours I could purchase.

So I choose my favorite collage and attempted to depict it in felt, less colours, more texture and definitely a lot harder work to make. But then it can be taken outside in the rain and not disintegrate and could easy to the starting point for a deluge resistant tent.   Maybe not .  Prediction of the behaviour of the colour blends and the fibre blends is not always easier for me to do, especially now I have the added complication of all the different fibres as well as colours. Sometimes they are more dramatic then I intended sometimes less.

Overall I achieved the effect I wanted. But it reminds me more of a raging river after a deluge,than a deluge itself,  with eddies, currents, froth, rocks and lots of flotsam. It fact it reminds me of a bad experience I rather forget when whilst white water canoeing near Barnard Castle , I cracked my boat and then had to hitchhike in a cold wet suit to get home.  Felting is a lot safer than white water canoeing especially after a deluge, but can sometimes be as wet!

More than Merino

To date most of my felting has been with the widely available merino fibre. It's very dependable easily available and comes in a wide range of colours. My current challenge is felting with different fibes in natural colours. What a range there is. I have barely touched the surface with my exploration into Shetland , Blue Faced Leicester and Herdwick. So I decided to do a little bit of research into the fibres, more to help me tell then apart than anything else. 

Shetland has a slightly bigger diameter fibres ,than merino but slightly shorter fibres. In my limited experience they are both equally easy to felt, but Shetland is maybe a bit bouncier when it is felted. It comes in shades of brown , through to cream along with grey.

Blue faced Leicester  a cross between a hexham and a swaledale sheep is lovely . Northumbria and Yorkshire mixed. It has a far wide fibre length but it's fibre diameter is similar to Shetland. Colours range from mid brown through to cream. It has a luster and a wave that the other fibres don't have. When felted it retains the waves in the felted item and it is lovely both as felt and as fibre.

Herd wick, although it has a place in my heart , due to my love of the English lake district, has what can only be described as bristles , not fibres., in mixed grey colours. . Good for keeping the sheep warm on the damp fells, but not so nice for felting. I have tried but I am yet to have a success. More suitable for carpets and insulation rather than felting I think.

So there is a new world for me to explore of textures and colours and I am only at the beginning. There is Mute, Suffolk, Norwegian, Romney , Jacobs , Gotland and much much more.

Here is arrange of half felts and fibres from Shetland , Blue faced Leicester and merino, soon to be converted in a big deluge felted project.