Sunday, November 18, 2012

SCARBOROUGH FAIR

OK! I actually did it!! After many many years I managed to get myself in a plane ( in a comatose state) and make the trip to the U.K!! It wasn't that awful, possibly because of my passion for felting. It was a 5 day trip: three days of felting bliss alongside Lindsey Tyson-an experienced and extremely talented textile designer, felt maker, teacher and friend. The other two days were spent traveling to and from Scarborough, through the lovely English countryside. That was the long awaited break I really needed-I recharged my batteries and welcomed chaos once again!!!
Lindsey coached me through 3D felt sculpture and vessel making using a resist. No more of those extremely limiting balls and balloons which really just make my projects lumpy, bulky and somewhat unexciting.


The other side:


And of course one of her own felt sculptures (correct me if I'm wrong, Lindsey) which has to do with the destruction of the environment and pollution:

I complimented that sculpture with my last environmentally conscious "ball" vessel:



You can find more of Lindsey's work at www.lindseytyson.co.uk  Seriously folks, please pay her a visit!!
I also had the opportunity to dye wool and silk fabric- something I would NEVER get the chance to do at home (unless I want somebody to spontaneously go up in flames, of course!) I participated in a cobweb felt workshop where we first dyed our wool and then learned the technique:







 I don't think I will be trying cobweb again in the near future............it just made me too nervous- but it's extremely elegant!!
The next thing I experimented with was textures in nuno felt and I incorporated that into a waist jacket made for a teeny tiny person. Here I had the opportunity to dye my silk fabric and work with different types of silk to see how they behave after the felting process.





 Of course, being the person that I am, I didn't take notes so I'm going to have a field day trying to do this on my own without Lindsey's generous help!! Oh well! I guess I'll have to make another trip over to refresh my feeble memory!!




 

Earthscape Art

There is this extremely talented guy, Andres Amador, who creates amazing sand art on beaches when the tide is low.............
I have found his work to be extremely inspiring so, using his creations as a template, I decided to reproduce some of my own interpretations of that art. One may wonder why on earth would anybody bother spending hours creating something that will wash away in seconds as soon as the tide comes in- but I suppose that's the beauty of it all............



















You can find more of Andres Amador's work at www.andresamadorarts.com  Please check him out!!!

Vicious, you hit me with a flower!!