rosiepink

Experimenting With Layering and Editing in Feltmaking

Annie

Since my wonderful class at West Dean I've been having a play and have made various samples to test out ideas.   The most relevant to this project was this one:

I like the way the colours peeped through the open weave.  Still vibrant but layered and more interesting.

For this picture I started by having a go at randomly "making marks", with the intention of turning it into a picture of something later in the process (most likely flowers I thought at the time, as that's what I like doing!).

I used fibres, prefelts, fabrics, yarns and also some of my handspun yarn:

Some of the colours in my materials were my usual colours but others were a bit more experimental for me such as the purple.  I really like the dark blue spotty fabric which I think is from an old scarf.

Once I'd done a bit of mark making I started to form a flowers composition. After a while I thought it was too much so I employed the editing / whiting out idea. For this I used some white open weave cotton fabric which I pulled several strands from to make it a little more see-through and laid it over the areas I wanted to "knock back".  The photos below are after felting but it shows the idea.  After felting it was a lot more see-through than when it was laid out.

I thought I'd finished laying out by picture 4 in the images below but then I thought I'd push it and added some pink merino flowers over the top then outlined them with white yarn.

Here is an example of some of the layering in the picture, before and after felting.  Obviously I'd laid some other bits on top before felting but it shows the idea.  I like looking at small areas of a bigger picture to think how little passages could be used in later work.  I think this open weave blue over white could represent windows in a skyscraper maybe.

Here are some other details photos:

During the process I covered up some lovely pieces of handspun yarn and some nice shapes but overall I think the sacrifices were worth it to get more depth and layering into the picture.  Overall I'm not sure it's my ideal colour palette or composition or quirky enough design but that doesn't matter.  With every experiment I find more things to try out and get more ideas for future works.  But most important it's great fun to do.

Here is a final photo of the whole thing.  The ratio of height to width is not ideal but I do like the way the blue vase hangs off the bottom:

 

Fabulous Flowers at West Dean College!

Detail from one of my experimental paintings.
So many ideas to bring into feltmaking from this process.

Annie

A couple of weeks ago I attended another fabulous course at West Dean College, called Floribunda. The abbreviated description was "...be more expressive and...indulge your enjoyment of colour, texture, form and paint...make paintings that go beyond traditional flower painting, to encourage you to be bold, experimental and courageous" Sounded just perfect, I love creating pictures of flowers and experimenting. It was with a lovely tutor, Emily Ball, and I had a wonderful time. I learnt an awful lot about painting, and the process of painting, but I also learnt loads that I can bring into my feltmaking too. Double win!   I do like to experience the creative process of other people using different media such as paint.  The medium may be different but a lot of the lessons you can learn apply whatever you do in your creative time.

At the college there is inspiration everywhere, whatever the time of the year. The gardens are tended with lots of love and it shows:

 

Here is a selection of some of the flowers that were gathered from the grounds, by the gardeners, for the centre of the classroom:

To start with we did lots of exercises that were really helpful in getting us to loosen up, such as random mark making, just experimenting with our materials to see what different effects we could achieve, without a finished picture in mind:

We also did an exercise where we painted purely from touch - we each had a flower/plant behind our back that we had not seen given to us and we painted everything that we felt with our fingers e.g. velvety, spiky, smooth etc. This was one of my favourite exercises and it felt really free.  Mine was an achillea:

We then turned one or two of our mark making / scribbling exercises into pictures of flowers. This gave us a great background to start on rather than a white blank page and, through the editing, removing and adding to the marks some great things happened!  I really enjoyed doing these:

We all worked at our own pace when not doing group tutorials and I painted several pieces, none of them masterpieces but I loved the outcomes, the process and what I learnt from them.

Here is one of the pieces I did (A1 size / 33in x 23in), I had loads of fun doing it but fought with it on and off for hours, changing it and turning it and editing bits in and out:

And some details of that painting and another one that I did:

One of the main things I learnt that was most useful for me was don't be too precious too early about any one piece of the work - if you let go and allow yourself to edit then great things can happen. Both of the following photos are pieces of painting that I edited with white paint, and coloured paint, turned round and edited again. I love the scarring that shows through from the layers below, and the fact that the sections turned out much better for it. You can discover a lot from editing and being brave and pushing yourself:

I really got stuck in and was exhausted by the end, in a good way, and covered in paint!

Having worked through these exercises and paintings I decided that it would be a lot of fun to push myself more in some future projects to be even more experimental with compositions and layouts in my feltmaking and other textiles work.  The rapid work of sketching and mark making is very freeing and I will endeavour to do more of this, both in my sketchbook and also with fibres.  I learnt that it is important to observe and to think, but not to overthink and not to allow my logical and sometimes fearful brain to rule!  Now overflowing with inspiration I've begun making a fresh new pile of prefelts to use to layer up and cut up to use in some new pieces:

'The Windfarm' - a simple seascape

Small abstract seascapes are quick and easy to make.  Just lay down some coloured horizontal lines and 'hey presto' the eye is tricked!

Make 3 base layers of wool fibres - start with a vertical layer so that the 3rd layer is vertical.  Wet down the wool fibres then mark a horizon with a piece of thread. 

The layout shown below was approximately 30 x 20cm (12"x 8") and only Merino wool fibres were used.

You can just lay down horizontal, dry, coloured strips of wool fibres, but I prefer to wet the strips as I think the results are better. 

The sample below shows 10 strips of merino wool fibres on a base layer of white (each colour was the same amount of fibres).  The top 5 strips were pre-wetted and the bottom 5 strips were dry, and when placed on the base layer they looked identical.  However, during felting the dry fibres have spread and the colour is not so intense.  The pre-wetted fibres don't spread so much and the colours stay vibrant.

To wet a strip of fibres, simply hold each end and saturate it in a bowl of soapy water.  Then lift it out and run finger and thumb gently down the length.

To make the sky, start at the top with the darker colours then work downwards to the lighter ones.  Go back over it putting in colours wherever you think they need to be! 

To make the sea, start with the darker colours on the horizon (remember to remove the guide thread) and mirror some of the sky colours in the water then add a bit of headland. 

Add a focal point.  Perhaps a lighthouse or buildings or boats.

The focus for this seascape is a windfarm and the windmills were formed from very thin wisps of white merino wool fibres.

During the early felting the straggly bits on both sides of the piece of felt were trimmed and it became painfully obvious that the windmills looked more like drunken dancers, so they were removed!

When the felt was dry the windmills were added using white cotton perle embroidery thread - each windmill comprised a french knot and 4 long stitches.

I have a stash of frames bought from charity (thrift) shops and I had just the right one for 'The Windfarm'.

This is a very quick and easy way to make a seascape and it will never be the same twice! 

 

Free-Standing Wet-Felted Art Experiment

 

We often enjoy the challenge of translating a picture we've made in another medium, into a felted piece. We do love to experiment! This time we're using a mixed media (paint, crayon, pastel, watercolours) "Artist Book" from a lovely workshop we recently attended, details below. Shown above is our first attempt - it measures 72 x 15 cm (28"x 6").  It's based on a concertina book / free standing picture as shown in the photos down the page.

We cut some 160gsm cartridge paper, roughly the same size as the finished felt, then scored the paper where it needed to form the folds.  We flattened the paper then applied a generous amount of pva to it then smoothed the felt onto it.  Both the paper and the felt were larger than needed to allow for trimming into shape with a craft knife when the glue was dry.

Overall the result of the experiment was pretty good but the paper needs to be thicker to support the edges better (as can be seen above) and whether the felt, pva and paper would stand the test of time still needs to be established.

This could open up lots of possibilities for creating seasonal decorations or fancy greeting cards. A bit of stitching might look good, or experimenting with fine felt could add a new element.  Maybe even shaping it a bit, it doesn't have to have straight sides.  Row of Christmas trees anyone?  It might even work on pelmet vilene but we'd have to try that out. 

The one-day Artists Books workshop that inspired the experiment was tutored by Sarah Humby in Stanpit Village Hall, Christchurch.  It was a great day, the cake was delicious, and the view from the workroom was lovely:

We made several free-standing paintings - here are two...

...and we made painted boxes in which to keep them.

 

Previously I blogged about my attempt at recreating a painted picture of Mackerel which was great fun to do.

Annie says she has a hankering to attempt to recreate her Pomegranate painting into handmade felt. It's working it's way up the list of things to do!

How to make silk paper and use it in wet felting

Silk paper is very easy to make and cuts into any shape you want so it makes a good embellishment in wet felting.  The sample above shows just silk paper shapes on merino wool, but of course you can mix silk paper shapes with other embellishments.

There are a few different ways to make silk paper but here's a simple one.

You will need:

• newspaper (or whatever absorbent paper you have to hand)
• 2 pieces of net (such as tutu net) - in this tutorial the pieces of net are 50 x 40cm (20" x 15")
• a piece of heavyweight plastic larger than the net (perhaps cut from an old parcel bag)
• wallpaper paste (or carboxymethyl cellulose granules, aka CMC, for archival quality textile work)
• container to mix the paste in
• a mister spray bottle containing warm water and half a teaspoon of dish-washing liquid
• a small sponge
• silk fibres such as: tops, noil, mawata hankies, throwsters waste

Make up 500ml (just under a pint) of wallpaper paste following the instructions on the packet - this will be more than you need to make a small sample, but it will keep for another day if you cover it tightly.

Cover a work surface with several layers of newspaper then place the piece of plastic on top.  Lay the piece of net on top of the plastic.

Make a layer of silk fibres, in the colour of your choice, on top of the net - don't go right to the edge of the net but leave 5-10 cms (2-4") of net showing all around. 

Make a second layer of silk fibres on top of the first layer ensuring that the fibres run in a different direction to those on the first layer.

You don't have to lay the fibres neatly - you can put them exactly as you wish.

Here's a close-up view of the fibres on the second layer.

Carefully place the second piece of net over the fibres and in line with the piece of net underneath the fibres.  Then spray the silk, through the net, with the water containing a little dish-washing soap.  When the silk fibres are saturated, use a small sponge to remove as much water as possible.  Check the reverse side for dry-spots.

Apply wallpaper paste liberally to the silk fibres, through the net, to both sides - either use a small sponge or a large soft paintbrush.

Use your fingers to really work the paste into the silk fibres on both sides for a couple of minutes then, starting in the centre, push any excess paste away until it's on the plastic and not on the net .

Leave the silk paper between the pieces of net to peg it up to dry.  Protect the area beneath the silk paper with a drip tray or newspaper because it's very hard to clean up!

 

When the silk paper is dry, carefully peel the netting away.  Don't worry if you can see the pattern of the netting on the paper as it will disappear during felting. 

You can cut shapes out of the silk paper freehand or you can trace shapes onto the paper side of freezer paper then iron the silk paper to the waxy side of the freezer paper using a dry iron on medium heat for 2-3 seconds.  Use baking paper underneath and on top to protect the iron and ironing board. Gently press - don't move the iron back and forth.  Let it cool.  When you've cut out your shapes, gently peel the silk away from the freezer paper.

When you're trying out a new technique it's a good idea to make a small sample so that any problems can be easily corrected.

The following instructions presume basic felt making knowledge, so if you've never made felt before, please see our free tutorial 'how to make flat felt'

Four layers of blue merino wool and a partial layer of white merino wool were used to make this small sample - we didn't worry about neat edges as the sole purpose of making the sample was to try out the application of silk paper shapes.

After the merino wool was wetted and flattened, the silk paper shapes were placed on top then wetted through a piece of net. The felt was made with gentle agitation on both sides until the silk had been trapped by the wool fibres,  then worked until it was firm enough.

The merino wool fibres will migrate right through the silk paper and if you think the result looks dull, you can shave the surplus fluff away from the silk using a one-blade razor.  Be careful to not abrade the silk - use a very light touch.

It was useful making this sample because we found that the dark red silk 'bled' a little and that will be worth remembering for future use! 

Creating from Imagination

 

I finally decided that I was going to sort out my photos once and for all and at last make some pictures from the 1000s of inspiring shots of all sorts of random things that I've taken. Well, I got about half an hour into it then realised that it is a really big task which will take a lot of time and a bit of planning, and that perhaps I'd just make something up instead! :)

I enjoy working from my imagination using subjects such as landscapes, flowers and birds because anything goes :)

I chose to make a vase of flowers this time. This is a subject that will never run out of possibilities!

I started by laying down a piece of open weave fabric over white fibres to make a sort of canvas then added a piece of turquoise silk as the vase then added a few other bits before I decided it needed some depth in the background so I took it all off and added some vertical strips of open weave dark blue fabric. Not sure how well this worked in the end but you've got to try these things out! I also added some mini boucle yarn in spirals for flowers. I really liked the way this felted in and will use it again for outlines etc.

 

After the picture had dried after felting I was unhappy with it but couldn't decide why. After a while I realised that the turquoise was clashing with and draining the rest of the colours. They didn't work together. So I picked a piece of navy fabric with white spots on it to make a new vase, and attached it with bondaweb over the original vase. It was improved straightaway.

 

I didn't want to overdo this picture, as I sometimes do, so took a few days to place things on and take them off and give it some thought. I also tried a few stitch ideas. I thought it would look great to add some dark blue running stitch round the edge of the light blue leafy stems but it actually made them look too small and messy. It's a shame because it looked nice up close to start with then I had to take it all off because standing back it just didn't work.

 

I placed a viewinder (two L-Shaped pieces of white card) around the picture to help isolate the picture from my ever-messy work table. This adds clarity for me. I thought something else was not working and after experimenting found it was the shape of the vase. I rounded it off and instantly liked it better.

 

I finished off with a few hand stitches, a few circles of silk, some ribbon and a bit of yellow leather.

I'm quite pleased with how it turned out in the end and enjoyed the process of experimenting with different things along the way. It all feeds in to future projects, and also sparks more ideas :)

nuno felt art - the bird and his breakfast

Lyn

The second quarter challenge on 'The Felting and Fiber Forum' is to use nuno felt as a surface decoration.  "The Bird and his Breakfast" is my entry to this challenge.  Please hop on over to the The Felting and Fiber Forum Blog to read more!

Handmade Felt, Metalwork, Printmaking, Dressmaking aaaand a New Tutorial! :)

Work In Progress - Test layout

Annie

While tidying up my sewing room (yet again!) I rediscovered this lovely sample piece of fabric I bought in Cheltenham last year (by rosablue, Cheltenham):

I thought it would be nice to use it as inspiration for a piece of felt because I love the design and it's simplicity and I do enjoy working with leaves and flowers. I made a piece of felt a few weeks ago that I was really unhappy with but looking at it again thought I might be able to cut it up and use it in a new piece.

First I cut out a few sections that I did like that I wanted to keep as they might be useful for other things such as small pictures or greeting cards (top and bottom right in picture). A few of the snippets at the top look a bit like mini beachscapes and the others are just interesting or have a useful technique to remember like the flower shapes made out of yarn. I cut the rest into leaf shapes to lay out in my new piece of felt.

Before I make my leaves picture I thought I would make a sample sheet of different techniques to see how different things worked and looked. I had tried using the embellisher to attach a leaf to some other felt but it obliterated all the detail. Sometimes that's a great effect but for this picture I wanted something else. So I thought a sample sheet would be useful. I laid out a small square (finished size is approx a 10in/25cm square) and I tried several different ideas on it.

I tried different background fabrics to add texture and I also tried lots of layering and outlining ideas. I tried layering the felt pieces, layering two layers of fabric then the felt on top, silk outlines, yarn outlines, chopped up felt "confetti" pieces, fabric then fibre then a piece of felt, cutting a hole in the fabric - all sorts of combinations!

This is as far as I have got but I'll attempt to finish it soon. It's currently brewing in my head :)

I've done a few other things recently too. I have actually finished 3 (three!) projects. I made an artisan wrap apron and am really pleased with how it turned out. I think it's only the second item of clothing I've made and now I can't wait to make more things! It's a bit crumpled and messy in the photo because I've worn it a lot for printmaking etc.

I printed 1.5 metres of fabric (from an old bed sheet) with the clouds design I mentioned in my previous post and made a pillow case for an oversized pillow from it. I've had 4 of these pillows for years with no covers to use so they have been in vacuum bags just waiting for me to make the covers.  One down, three to go!

I also went on a metalwork workshop (at West Dean - I've wanted to go for years and finally did it!) and made a big sunflower out of copper and aluminium (it is approx 22in/55cm across and the stem is just over 7 foot/215cm tall!). I learnt how to cut, heat and shape, hammer and texture, rivet, use a pillar drill etc. It was great fun! :) The marker pen markings need cleaning off, but here it is.  I love it!

Lyn

We've also been busy creating a new eBook.  We decided to make the abstract felt and stitch technique from this blog post into an eBook to sit alongside our others.  This easy technique enables the reader to make many variations and unique pieces of art with their own design and colour palette.  We used a simple fish design but you could use any simple shape e.g. a stylised sailboat, vase or leaf.

There are step-by-step explanations and photos to guide the reader through the design, felting and stitching processes to make a piece of felt art, mounted on a stretched canvas, and ready to hang on a wall.

If you'd like to, you can read more about it here:)

 

 

 

It's not what I planned....Creative Happy Accidents! :)

 

Annie

I love how when you play and experiment without overthinking what you are creating that you can get some lovely unexpected results....but I also find this happens to me a lot when I am actually really trying :) and it goes "wrong", or when I am simply clearing out or rearranging my workspace I get inspired in unexpected ways.

The "rain" on the felt above happened by accident when my desk was too messy (as always I had gotten to the point where everything was out!) and I was too lazy to get paper towels to clean up as I worked. I wiped the wooden skewer clean that I was using to paint with on my brayer roller then realised that was a bad idea so I cleaned the brayer on a piece of felt in the pile. Immediately I thought - "ooh rain over a stormy sea!" Brilliant! I wonder whether if I had actually been trying to create rain whether I would have thought to put paint on a roller from a skewer?

I have recently begun a fabric printing evening class - hence the renewed interest in playing with paints!  It's a basic introduction to making homemade stamps out of anything you can think of (more hoarding coming up!), lino cutting, silk screen with stencils and learning how to make repeating patterns etc. It's a lovely low-tech course using pen and paper rather than the computer. On my first session I picked up some pipe insulation to print circles (I love working with simple circles - there is something very pleasing to my eye about the circle) and I applied the fabric paint and started stamping out circles only to discover I hadn't cleaned the paint roller properly and there was still traces of yellow on it which mixed with the blue. The effect was lovely and one I will use again :)

For homework I carved a stamp from lino - the repeating cloud pattern below took me about 5 attempts to get right, but eventually it happened.  I showed unusual persistence with this! However, I forgot about lining up the marks in the sky around the clouds and just gouged it out randomly. I was disappointed to start with then realised that I actually prefer that it is a bit mismatched as it shows the handmade-ness of it. I'd like to use this design (or something like it) to make a bedside lampshade one day, or more likely a pillow case.

I did some more experimenting with circles, this time on to some handmade felt. I found the scrim topping really helped the paint to sit more clearly rather than straight on to fibres. However, I thought I had mixed opaque paints but I had used the translucent binders in the mix, and also I'd not let it dry in between and the colours showed through and mixed. To great effect! Not what I had intended but nice all the same.

A great side effect of all the printing is that I found if I leave an open sketchbook next to me I can clean my tools off on to the pages (as well as any felt or fabric laying around) and I get some unplanned freely created backgrounds in my sketchbook which is always good to not have to start with a blank white page when you want to sketch something.

I discovered how effective randomness with a brayer roller can be when I was sketching at evening class using twigs etc as "pens" to encourage freedom of mark-making. My piece of paper ended up like this...

...with lots of really effective pieces in it. The "bumps" that fade as they go up the page are from paint blobs on the brayer and the the little square of heart shapes is from the end of my twig where it didn't sharpen properly.

Back at home clearing out my craft space (again! it gets soooo messy!) I found a pile of colour catcher sheets (the ones you put in the washing machine) in all lovely colours that I'd been saving. For something. I've no idea what. Time to be ruthless I thought... until I picked up the stack and bent them in half - could they be made into a little textiles sketchbook?!

Lastly (for now!), I'm always looking for new ways to make effective edges on small pieces of felt and I found this little sample in my pile. The piece of fabric must have been the edge of an old scarf or something and the frayed edge had stayed free of the wool fibres and made an interesting edge. Something to try to repeat in the future maybe on a small flowers picture or a wild landscape.

The trouble is that the more you play with stuff the more that this happens which leads to more ideas! I'm sure we've all got plenty of examples. If only spare time was like creativity and the more you used the more you got!

 

 

 

Nuno Felt & Stitch Valentine Birds

Lyn

'Surface Design' is this quarter's challenge on The Felting and Fiber Forum, so I chose to make felt topped with fabric (nuno felt) and stitching, and as it's February it had to have a Valentine influence!

Lovebirds are traditionally used to depict 'billing and cooing' but I favoured cockatoos for my design, and as I can't draw a cockatoo without help, my thanks go to Darkonator who's posted an easy to follow tutorial.

To make my design I drew two cockatoos - the female facing left with her head tilted upwards and the male facing right with his head tilting down and I drew his crest larger than hers. I cut both birds out then placed them, at the angles I wanted, onto a new sheet of paper then I added the branches. 

Cockatoos aren't that colourful really, but hey, I had a gorgeous piece of loose-weave fabric that was begging to be made into nuno felt, so I started with four fine layers of merino wool fibres - the top layer was variegated ...

...then I covered the wool fibres with the fabric.  Shown below is the finished nuno felt and a close up to show the lovely texture.

I traced the outline of the bird design, cut it out, then tacked it onto the nuno felt.  I had to use more than one piece of tracing paper so the more opaque areas are where two sheets have overlapped and the shiny bits are sticky tape that I used to secure the ends of the tacking thread.  The design is approx 12" tall and 11" wide.

I stitched around the outline then removed the tracing paper.  It was then easy to complete the cockatoos within the outline. When the stitching was complete, I cut the birds out then stitched them to very thick artist's paper. 

Now I'm going to have some fun trawling the local charity shops in search of the perfect frame ... and with luck I'll find some more fabric for my stash!