Category Archives: Art

Getting ahead with a felt hat…

Absolute bliss this weekend to creep off and leave the boys and spend two days having fun! Ewa always turns up with yet another cunning plan to make felt making slightly less hard work and I’m all for that. I’ve always felt slightly scared about making a felt hat because of hat blocks and steaming and all the things you see in the more intimidating manuals. It’s a big outlay if you turn out to be rubbish or you only have one hat in you.

making a felt hat

making a felt hat detail

By the end of the first day of measuring and drawing, deciding on the colour schemes and laying out the fleece, we ended the day with each studio table holding a large amorphous shape of soggy wool, covered in plastic. It was hard to imagine that any of them could posibly be transformed into any sort of head wear.

That’s what I love about felt making though, the magical transformation from a wet sheep to something with form and structure, colour and substance. Wool absorbs dye so well, the colours are intense and saturated, a visual feast.

the felt hat brigade

I was pretty pleased with my felt hat, just the thing to wear on Planet Penny…

Planet Penny felt hat

…now… a hat block…I’m just off to Ebay!

The book’s in the post…

Doing my research for ‘All Booked Up’ I came across the idea of a Mailing Journal in the book ‘Making Books and Journals’ by Constance E Richards. I do try to put my own spin on the ideas I get from other sources, but I lifted this idea straight off the page just to see how well it works. It makes me feel I’ll never buy another pack of ‘notelets’ again! It can be as lengthy or as succinct as you make it, as colourful or simple as you like, and designed especially for the recipient. I do have a tendency to buy beautiful wrapping paper which I then can’t bear to see torn off and discarded so this was a good use for this fabulous double sided piece.

I’m still digging round in the button box…

…and finding more in my wrapping paper stash.

Today I must remove my book hat, replace it with a felt one and get ready for a weekend of making…Felt Hats! I’m off to Broadland Art Centre, as a student this time, for two days with Ewa Kuniczak, felt maker extraordinaire.

Enough of all that!

I’ve just remembered I intended to blog about creativity, not puppies! I haven’t had a lot of time for that recently, but it’s now the first of October, and at the end of the month I am teaching at Broadland Art Centre. We are very lucky to have such a unique venue so close to home. BAC is housed in an old school in a pretty little village on the river and the classroom is the perfect place for a small gathering of students. I feel very privileged to be numbered among those teaching there, as the calibre of past and present tutors is so high. Among them the textile artists Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn, the main features of last year’s Knit and Stitch Show at Alexandra Palace, the internationally renowned marine artist, William Calladine, and, AND… ( I speak his name in reverential tones), the one, the only Kaffe Fassett! Oh yes, I did go on his courses.

Passionate Patchwork – Kaffe Fassett

Attending a few courses at the Broadland Art Centre was one of the contributing factors to my eventual decision to become a mature Student at Norwich University College of Art in 2000 so it’s nice to have the association with it now.

This year I, and my partner in crime, Kit, am running a course called ‘All Booked Up!’ (yes it was my idea to call it that, and yes, it has caused no end of confusion to people reading the brochure, and yes, I’m really, really sorry!) and we are making books. Not formal bookbinding books, because that’s an amazing and exacting craft requiring great skill, accuracy and training. We’re making pretty books, jolly books, books for people who have a vast collection of lovely little bits of fabrics and papers, buttons and beads, and piles of gorgeous bits of textile art left over from experimenting…that they don’t know what to do with and can’t possibly throw away. Well, we’re going to make them into little books.

Over the next couple of weeks I will be flexing my making muscles to get them in trim for two days of demonstrating and teaching, and posting the results so you can see if I’m slacking.

I will regain my focus on artistry and creativity, I will aspire to a state of Zen like concentration, I will reach the end of each day uplifted by what I have achieved, I will… excuse me, I just have to go and mop up that puddle…

Getting there slowly…

Enough time today to tackle my photograph mountain. While trawling through all the colour I realised I had all sorts of beautiful natural tones and textures which deserve a little appreciation all on their own.

A roof at Great Dixter, and all these lovely images from inside the barn. cow parsley

ladder

wooden peg

An amazing wall in Rye…

textiles

Luxurious textiles at Sheffield Park…

shells

And a shell encrusted anchor on the sea front of Hastings.

In which we Head for an Exhibition, and eat Cromer Crab on the Way…

face on a bollard top

Well, we didn’t expect to meet HIM on a Norwich street! I know nothing about him, who he is or where he came from, but it’s a really good way to top a bollard! We were ‘up the ci’y’ today combining hair cuts with a Louise Richardson and Andy Campbell exhibition. (It’s Thursday again!)

The arcade in Norwich

Our hairdresser is situated in the Royal Arcade in Norwich, which is a pretty good place to start to the day. While Kit was in the chair, I went off to the market where the nice lady on the wool stall was, as usual, able to supply exactly what I needed.

yarn, needles and sock pattern

In this case, the wherewithall for portable holiday knitting, and a start on Christmas presents for nearest and dearest!

Our intended destination was the King of Hearts, to see an exhibition by Louise Richardson and Andrew Campbell. It was a really inspiring exhibition. Although their work is very different in execution, the overall effect in an exhibition situation blends beautifully, and the space at the King of Hearts works very well.

Gotto Collection

Some of the pieces were displayed behind glass, making it difficult to do them justice with a photograph,but I do have some particular favourites. These by Louise… Moth Dress by Louise Richardson

Detail of Moth Dress by Louise Richardson

Dress made of nails by Louise Richardson

detail of nail dress by Louise Richardson

and these by Andrew…

Andrew Campbell piece, 2009 Exhibition, NorwichUK

As well as an exhibition space, The King of Hearts has a music room for lunchtime concerts…

I would point out that the wonkiness is due, not to a faulty camera or even a liquid lunch, but to Tudor builders! A shop full of beautiful craftsman (craftswoman, craftsperson?) made pieces…

And a sunny courtyard..

Where we ate lunch.

Refreshed, both in body and spirit, we headed up Magdalen Street in search of the Park and Ride bus, but were distracted by a bargain set of curtains in the Oxfam shop anda wonderful Emporium of vintageness in the old Looses building…

At this point I would have been grateful to find a pair of Louise Richardson’s shoes to take me home, rather than a bus!

winged shoes

Salthouse and a Printmaking Weekend

Salthouse Cottage

A forty minute drive along the coast road brought us to Salthouse, a tiny Norfolk village with a big annual Art Exhibition held in it’s beautiful flint church which stands on a mound above the village, over looking the sea. We were lucky enough to book onto one of the art event courses which run alongside the Exhibition, two days of Experimental Printmaking.

printmaking workshop

There were ten of us and, as is usual with these things, all female. It’s really strange, print making is hardly a girly thing! The main skill we were being taught was Collagraphy, a relatively new form of print making which is much more user friendly than etching etc which requires noxious acids and other things with Health and Safety issues. You’re pretty safe with PVA glue! The basic plate is a collage of different papers, textures and textiles, glued down firmly on to heavy board and varnished to create a plate which can be inked and run through a printing press, with amazing results if you are an expert like Laurie Rudling.

Laurie's printing plate - experimental printmaking

Laurie Rudling - print - experimental printmaking weekend

By the end of the weekend I felt I had learnt an enormous amount but was pretty underwhelmed with what I’d actually produced, especially as some of the other students had produced amazing stuff worthy of framing and putting in a gallery. I was green with envy! Laurie, bless him, had positive things to say to everyone at the final ‘Show and Tell’, even me. I felt so much better after he’d referred to my effort as ‘reminiscent of a piece of Roman Wall’, so I might not hide it under the bed after all!

Roman Wall

Having revealed my print, I must now show how high the standard of the rest of the group actually was, despite my embarrassment! Considering many in the group had no experience in printing it’s great when a good tutor like Laurie Rudling is able to draw out people’s hidden talents. I’ve taken note of the fact that Laurie has a course coming up at Broadland Art Centre at the end of September which could well be just what I need!

experimental printmaking Having fitted in a look round the Exhibition we wandered down to the little stream which runs alongside the road through the village. There we admired the cows and the view and enjoyed the icecream cornet and flake with which we rewarded ouselves after all the hard work of the weekend.

Salthouse Cows