Year 2018 Schedule

I'm delighted to be accepted to this year Art in the Pen event in Thirsk. Being not well for a half of February I run out of time to create new pictures and make a proper good application. Fortunately I'm still through!

So this is my list of events for the first half of the year 2018:

April 07-08  Spring into wool    Leeds
April 26-29  Harrogate Flower Show Harrogate
May 3-8       Felting festival Feltrosa   Cavareno, Italy
July 21-22    Art in the Pen ,    Thirsk
July 28         York River Art Market,      York
August 4      York River Art Market,     York 

Then I will have my summer holiday with a family and back to work in September. The September-December events are to be confirmed yet.

Feltrosa 2017

I'm just back from felting festival Feltrosa in Italy. It's an annual event held in different locations (usually remote :) ) . This year the organisers' choice was a small town Nazzano rather close to Rome but still in a national park. The house on the first picture is where we stayed and the magnificent castle on the hilltop is Nazzano itself (the second pic.). It was rather steep to get there even if the road is good!

But scenery is breathtaking!

There was a small themed exhibition "River and Life". I can't miss such occasion and presented one of my fish :)

  There were a few entertainments, getting together, felting in a group etc but what I was waiting most was a workshop. This year they run seven workshops: nunofelted snood, wall hanging in some kind of mosaic technique, making a hat, weaving, small needle felted rings, eco printing and making wool bas relief (this one was my choice). More info on workshops is HERE . I was making a bas relief with a tutor Maria Jose Troncoso  Just a few of her designs:             

 

I like the simple elegance of monochrome very much and she is a lovely person! She is a Spanish speaking person, the rest of the class were Italians but even with this variety of languages we did very well. It was interesting workshop and fortunately not very demanding physically. These are the works of my fellow students:

 

And this is my little chap!

I have really enjoyable time there, meeting some friends from last year and making new ones. The weather was great and afterwards we spent three days in Rome! I came back overwhelmed with emotions and need some rest :)                          

 

  

Back from FELTROSA!

I'm back from Italy where I spent a week  - three days in Verona and four days in small town Mel where the annual felting festival Feltrosa was held this year.
How was it? It was good even if I've heard some opinion that previous events had more interesting programme and were better organized. I couldn't compare because it was my first time and I couldn't complain - beautiful scenery, glorious weather and Italian food made up for all the shortcomings many times over.
I'm a felter still so the main reason (or excuse?) to go there was to see felt, workshops and take part in one of them. There were three workshops I've seen:
 - small jacket, 2-days workshop run by Natalia Shvets. As expected the "small" jacket became "full size" jacket and it took much longer and I've not seen the finished result unfortunately. Natalia wrote her own report on Feltrosa, it's in Russian but with many informative pictures - HERE 
- two one-day workshops on toques and fascinators run by Italian feltmaker Karin Monica. Small hats were presented in such a variety and made with such taste and fantasy that it was the best course in my opinion! See some pictures below. These hats were made by tutor but students' works were of the same high quality!

I attended the short  half day workshop on technique when you make digital print on silk fabric and could felt it in to create fully felted piece. Unfortunately it was a disappointment - both digital images I worked with disappeared completely by the end of felting process and I was left with blank piece of prefelt. The other participants got very mixed results as well... I was rather upset at first, then considered it as a new experience!
To finish it on more optimistic note there is a picture of lovely green heart one of Mel's resident created to his mother by carefully planting and pruning large ivy plant!

 

UPD: I've found the picture of a good result achieved by one of students, the image of daisies is a digital print:

 Unfortunately, I can't show mine because it was completely blank, no slightest image left...

Fossil Ammonite

The images of these fossils were always fascinating to me! I've made this as a sample to show at the demonstration I'm giving in our felters group next week. To show various effects achieved when work with resists. After all felting it happens to be too small to be anything apart from a sample 38x38 cm.

 

Sheila Smith Workshop

Yesterday I was on Sheila Smith workshop. It was about using stretched prefelt, laminated with silk chiffon, and creating decorative edges. The result is very pleasing, even on these mediocre pictures you can see how soft and delicate my scarf is! I used prefelt made of silk/merino blend and both prefelt and silk were hand dyed in matching colours.



The other participants created truly beautiful pieces, you can see some pictures here

Leiko Uchi Workshop

It was very exiting if somewhat stressful weekend - fantastic workshop with Japanese felt artist Leiko Uchi!

Not everything went as planned for me but the main problem was that my camery battery went dead very quickly. That's why I have very few pictures and a lot of experience!

The main piece is this - the scarf I made during the first day. White silk chiffon and 19 mic merino (both from Wollknol).



You can see how delicate it is and how inetersing on both sides. 25 gr of wool only!



Some close-ups to see details:



The other felters have choosen more restful colours and all the pictures of their beautiful scarves were made inside with artificial light. It means darkier pictures, sorry! Some details:





The second day I was making a sample for a different technique and it went wrong for me. The scarf I was working with had happend to be not silk chiffon claimed by label but a blend with some synthetic in it. It was very different to work with and some unexpected results. You learn from your mistakes isn't it? Anyway atmosphere and venue were great and the teacher was excellent! Thank you very much Leiko, hope to see you again!