Felting in the Fauvism style "View From a Window"

'View From a Window'      

Lyn

The current challenge on The Felting and Fiber Forum is to make a felt picture in the style of the Fauvist period - Fauvist paintings have a simplified drawing and an exaggerated use of colour. 

I searched the internet for art from the Fauvist period and found that I quite liked the painting below by Henri Matisse, 'The Open Window', so the felt picture above is my take on it.

My felt picture was made mostly by wet-felting using dyed merino wool, and the glass vase is a little piece of open weave fabric felted in. The flowers, curtain track and opening-window frames are needle-felted in using yarn, then free motion stitching defined the curtains and interior window frame.  The picture measures 50 x 36cm (20" x 14") and I stitched it to a pale blue stretched canvas.

............

Recently Annie and I found a couple of nifty things in 'Ikea' to help with our felting.  We've been using a flat grater to grate hard bars of olive oil soap to make our soap solution, but it's not easy and we often grate our finger nails along with the soap!  We bought a rotary grater for just £4 ($5)...

... and it's brilliant.  It will even grate those annoying little chunks that fall away and are impossible to grate on a flat grater.  We used the fine rotary wheel and found that the resulting soap 'powder' was quick and easy to make and very easy to dissolve in water.  

We also found this airer for £5 ($6.25) - it folds flat for easy storage. The rails are 79cm (31") long and ideal for drying wet-felted pictures. We put cross-stitch plastic canvas on the rails to fully support wet felt...

...and it's useful for drip-drying felt-making equipment!

We find it hard to look at anything without wondering if it could be useful in our craft rooms!