Felting free-for-all.

 

 

      The fun continues! Long overdue, I visited a very good friend this past weekend. Elaine is also an artist and also in every media you can imagine. I think the thing that binds us other than our 35 years of laughter and tears and yummy food and wine, is the creative longing in each of us and our love of exploring the next new thing. She is probably the most "travelled" of the two of us in terms of researching and then executing new techniques, new media, new materials. The "longing" part comes with the frustrating desire that even if there we ten of us we would never have time to do ALL the things we want to do...
   
      Home again, This morning I wrestled with my camera and computer to again enable the access to my own photos for the blog,...and SUCCESS!! Without further ado, I want to share the few little things I've created with this new and exciting medium. First off, to exercise my pokey fingers, I endeavored to embellish,..and mend an old lambswool sweater...the bigger bits like the hearts are repairing little holes. This sweater is the warmest ever and its great to have it patched up and cozy again...

When I finished I got wild and crazy and dyed raw wool included in the kit with various colors of sugarless Koolaid powder...an awesome experience as the wool slurped up every bit of the color and left clear water in the jar it soaked in. Just look at these colors,..in the absence of yellow Koolaid, I went digging in the pantry and tried turmeric..it made an awesome rich color.

                   

       After the excitement of having the wools turn out so well in their newly acquired awesome hues,I wanted to splash all that color on something. My closet has a stash of varied and sundry resources I keep just in case an inspiration comes along and I dug out some 12" squares of a blanket I had cut for blotting handmade paper back in the spring.  I just experimented with a kind of "hit and miss" needling of my colorful fleece on the pieces of blanket.  I 'm aiming for a colorful clutch purse...and here is what i have so far:

I'm trying to decide what to do with the closing flap...

      The next fun exercise was to try and sculpt. Bear in mind I have no clue what I'm doing. It's a wing and prayer. The next fun exercise was to try and sculpt. and after multiple stabbing and fleece springing everywhere, I made this little guy...who looks like a headless soccer player in this picture....      

      

Ichabod Feltman..

And now, although still incomplete, he presents himself as a dapper bucolic type who may acquire yet...some hair and a nice hat, some boots and horse or a little burro,..maybe a cow or something??...Time will tell!

 Has his head on straight but can't find his hat and boots..

       I will spend sometime learning the ropes. Since I'm literally just taking a stab at this, I promise that in my next blog I will collect some useful instructional sites and share them along with new pictures of these projects and whatever comes next...Happy trails folks!!!

Felting Fun in the New Year

     

      Happy new year to all!  It's been a stretch. I've been experiencing technical difficulties,...every manner and description of them and I'm still struggling. Our computer "crashed" literally and figuratively and this borrowed one needs getting used to....The formatting was entirely discombobulated and I couldn't add pictures to blogs or change the color or size of fonts. ( or spellcheck, so forgive me if I've erred and strayed like lost sheep. ) But so everyone will know I'm still alive I vowed to send out a blog in its simplest "text only" form. Just now I've worked out some of the glitches, I've embellished with samples from the net this and  have reposted.

      December and the Christmas season have blown through on gale force winds here on the coast, all and all a tumultuous blustery blurr. but in its wake, a new adventure!

      Until Isaac's significant other, Mary, showed me some samples she had been working on, I had never heard of wool felting. In retrospect I have seen products in local crafter's markets but never questioned the manner of their creation...
    

My own koolaid dyed batch of rovings

The young folks blessed me with a beginners needle felting kit with a pound of raw wool,  two very sharp felting needles and a sponge to use to protect myself from inevitable stabbings. When I took time to familiarize myself my imagination exploded like the fireworks that lit up our the sky over our harbour on New Year's Eve..

      The possibilities! There are sculptural possibilities, clothing possibilities, decor possibilities "painting" possibilities. It boggles the mind. When I googled the craft on-line I nearly short circuited from data overload. Various techniques include: wet felting, needle felting and nuno felting.The raw materials and tools are simple with a huge opportunity for recycling. Raw and carded animal fibers like sheep, llama, alpaca,..( even your dog and cat...with some limitations. ) Pieces of manufactured  skeined wools and woolen fabrics. Better still a run through your closet or the nearest "Frenchies" for old sweaters, blankets, old melton coats and hats, socks, mitts, scarves...you get the picture.

      
      I'm in the learning stages of course...but so far I've embellished an old sweater,..sculpted a perfectly amazing ball, made a tiny man whom I need to "dress" and resurfaced a section of an old army blanket which I've formed into a clutch purse...

      My synapses are firing, my adrenalin is bursting at the seams and creative juices could fill an industrial dye vat... ( Oh, wow! Dying the raw wool that came in my kit, that was a whole other adventure. I've discovered, so far, the miraculous properties of Kool aid, onion skins, turmeric and beets. Only the beginning I'm sure!! )

     

So, for now, remember me as I endeavour to fix this spastic heap of technology and bend it to my will so I can carry on creating and sharing my own photos of my work in this new and promising year!

Empty Nest

      Forgive me once again,..Unforgivable absence does not a popular blog create. Life has been in terminal flux of late, with all things culminating in what feels like a twelve car pile-up. Another metaphor might be that I'm Helen Hunt hanging on to the last tether in the climactic end of "Twister" ,...or imagine that my starship has come dangerously close to one of Steven Hawkings'  black holes.

       Sounds tragic right??..Those of you whose grandchildren live at a distance will laugh in my face and wonder at the drama.  Two summers ago, my daughter returned home from Ontario, in the event of carrying and delivering to us our first grandchild. As a new mom, she wanted the love and guidance of her own mom in the baby's early days.
     

Since my granddaughter's birth I've been with them one or two or three days a week. From day one, I have been overwhelmed with wonder and love. My friends have been chuckling as when even in speaking of her, my eyes always welled up with tears of absolute and overwhelming joy.

   
      Imagine how the bottom plummeted out of me when three weeks ago, they announced their plans to return to her husbands home. With U-haul trailer packed and family in the yard watching with the bravest faces they could muster, our dear ones headed to the Georgean Bay in a race to reach their new home ahead of Hurricane Sandy.

      All is well, they were tucked into their new digs just ahead of the heavy winds last Monday night. Above is a picture of the sweetest tiger cub celebrating her first Hallowe'en in her new community. An amazing loving family welcomes them there as well. The town they return to is filled with culture and opportunity and infinite possibility. They go with my love and understanding. There only remains the sadness of being the ones left behind.

      We'll be cashing in our frequent flier points ASAP.

More Noteable Notes-"Star Wars: the Notecard".

      There you have it... grabbed this from the customer and scanned it at the shop so I could keep a copy. It's such silly, random choice I'll not likely ever draw one again but I thought it turned out well. and that counts for something I suppose. It's such a fleeting unpredictable thing, trying to surmise what others will be drawn to.

      One of the lessons I have yet to learn is to create from my own passions instead of trying to create for an audience, a customer. It has always been the case that I make things on the request of someone else. Commissions, tourist oriented work for the folk and craft stores that operate nearby,..fun works for sets and props used in school plays. Murals in community buildings murals in the homes of family, friends and neighbors. I'm always asked because everyone who knows me knows I can..do or invent or illustrate just about anything.

      It seems though, as approach my 55th birthday, that I'm running out of time to develop a style and medium that are epitomally "me". We are advised always to make time for the things that matter. Life to this point has been very full. I have "taken time" to smell roses, watch birds, inhale the salt air and the east coast heaven that is my home. I have always taken time for my children, I devour, with a delicious depth of appreciation, every whiff of my new grand daughters "baby smell" and kiss every inch of her soft baby skin. All of these things are life giving and satisfying.  

      There is though that niggling whisper that taunts me, now and then, that to realize my full potential or at least "utilize" the gifts I have been given. A page left unwritten that I really need to write...Could that time be here?

"Places-I-Have-to-See-Before-I-D die"

 

   
        I realize this is a departure from my usual but an artist needs inspiration, right?? There are places I dream of visiting,  places that come straight to mind when someone muses "If you had a million dollars what would you do?" After I win that million, after I pay of my mortgage, renovate and finish this house and gift nice bundles of cash to my 4 children, I would kidnap my best friend Elaine and travel. For thirty-five years now, we have dreamed of travelling together but we've always been to poor or to busy to follow that dream.

      I have a running list that includes the Italian region of Tuscany, Santorini in Greece, Perthshire in Scotland because I have ancestry there, and there are castles to explore. Barbados is a place I must return to. I loved it there when in 2001 I traveled on a teaching trip with my husband. In 2003 my daughter took me to Luperon, in the Dominican Republic for my very first "All-Inclusive Resort" experience. It was amazing!
     
      Today I stumbled upon an awesome site. I have to add to my bucket list The Hilton Maldives' Rengali Island Spa and Resort. The above photo is their "Ithaa Undersea Restaurant." I stumbled upon this awesome spot this morning and it set my imagination on fire! How fun would it be to be sitting there having dinner (..obviously..Don't order seafood for the sake of the piscene peeping toms as I'm sure they'd be more than a little perturbed! )





Can you just imagine though?  What an amazing visual feast that would be ...and I do love sea creatures too. I love that in every aspect of the undersea world there is such amazing diversity in color shape, size and texture.In this paradise is beautiful over and under the sea! The resort itself is such an unusual design, pure architectural and aesthetic joy! Look at this undersea bedroom!!

      But, enough dreaming for today, I'm guessing if I just spend a moment perusing their reservation fees,  I'll get the reality check needed to inspire me to hit the studio hard. My wanderlust will have to wait, I need a little time to raise that million.

Notable Notes - Simplicity in Pen and Ink

       In my last post I mentioned being "nudged" to capitalize during the time I spend volunteering in a local crafters' co-op. At the time, my scanner was being a technological tick-off but now I've mastered the beast. Today I had a chance to scan all of the doodley little note cards that remain of the 35 or so that I've created so far. 

       
      You have to bear in mind that they are very simple compositions You can really only charge a minimum fee for a greeting card to keep it in a sellable range. With that in mind, I try to spend under an hour on each one. I draw them on archival quality cardstock so that if one seems to urge me to spend more time and carry it further, it can be matted and framed and sold as an artwork instead.

      I won't spend a lot of time writing tonight. I just want to scan and post a few in hopes that you may enjoy seeing them.Some are little seascapes. Some are flora and fauna of the seashore. Some are favored

  pets and other critters.
      The sky's the limit I suppose and I've already had orders for weddings birthdays and the like. As well, they feature the favorite themes of those for whom they are intended. The most random request was a "Star Wars" theme. ( Shoulda scanned that one, it wasn't half bad...) Anyway, here's a sample pack. Enjoy!! :)

AWOL - " A Hectic Hiatus"

      Sorry I've stayed away for so long.  I have such guilt!!! I love blogging, absolutely love it! Lately though its been too busy to formulate a cohesive thought. In the very beginning I expressed how life has surreptitiously gotten in the way of art,...and I knuckled under and admitted that I am solely to blame for allowing it to do so. I started to become really good at claiming my space and time. Well sir,..since Mid-July my best attempts, nor any power on heaven or earth could hold back the tide of "shit gone sideways". ( as my irrepressible eldest is wont to express )

      It's all really "cycle of life" stuff, inevitable and expected. We have children whose respective births span three decades. Although I suffer empty nest blues and pine for some, I still have one who lives at home and invites his teen-aged hungry friends to strip the pantry bare. The older 3 doubled their ranks with sweet life partners and are now home owners, parents and college students. One just went to sea, one just moved and one is finishing his degree. The youngest has a sweet gal pal who just headed back to school and he has just started a new job with a 5 am wake-up call from yours truly. Everybody is in "flux" at the same time   Add to this grandchildren, ( wonderful ) menopause, ( miserable ) middle age crazy husbands, ( exasperating and entertaining. ) and an aging mother only just beginning to need care. ( bewildering and bittersweet ) you've got a brain and a schedule filled with chaos. The scrambled brain isn't even the big deal,..the BIG deal is that my frickin' knees are toast so I don't have a leg to stand on, let alone run on at the dead smashing pace required at present.

      Silver linings still abound though.  I am always struck, at least several times a day, by how very lucky I am. My children are wonderful citizens of the world, all are in shining health. My husband is very hard working and so well respected. I have talents that are appreciated and kind people who watch to see what I will do next.

      I belong to an artists and crafters co-op and I volunteer on Thursdays. It is housed in one classroom of a retired school building. We've been given the shop space by Lisa, the proprietor of a successful printshop and a tempting and terrific cafe. Just yesterday I showed her the crow sketches from my last blog. Moments later she appeared with 7"x 10" cardstock and 5"x 10" envelopes and told me to plunk myself down at the craft store desk and increase my inventory. What a nice gift and just the motivation I needed to snap out of the fuzzy haze of the recent busy days and begin to create again. 

      I was fortunate enough to have my drawing supplies on hand and whipped up six pen and ink note cards. By days end we'd entered them into the inventory and half of them have already sold. This morning I had orders for more. When I sit to draw the next dozen or so, I will take time to scan them and share them with you. Til then, onward and upward!