Project 9 Stage 4b

Sample 2  (30cm x 15cm max)

Developing design ideas into weaving

At the Open Studios last Saturday I saw the work of Peter Dworok. 

I propose woven land and felted sea/sky

Immediately I saw it I made links between the tapestry I've been working on and the work on skies by  Francoise Tellier-Loumagne in the Art of Felt.

Felt sky

I had an idea that I've not been able to shake off.  I wondered how I could incorporate felting into weaving and it took me  a while to come up with something that might just work.

The bottom of Dworok's painting I can imagine as distorted weft with an outline as I did in my first piece.  Above that I plan to try just plain weaving then needle felting eventually introducing clouds.  This should give me the opportunity to concentrate on my tension a bit as well.

I'm not actually going to use this picture, it just happens to be the sort that sparked my idea.

What I am going to start with is the word "sunshine".  We've had so little sun that the weekend was a real treat and we had a lovely walk via a place we call "the top of the world".  We live in a rural area where this time of year is bright yellow with rape flowers.  It was beautiful and what I want to capture is that feeling.  I took some photos to help me remember.  They are not exactly what I wanted but good enough.

There's a lot of imagining to do here so I think I'll need to draw.

I'm not an experienced weaver and not an experienced needle felter either so I need to keep things simple.

I warped up my loom with wool, made a hem then put in a few rows of grassy field.  I worked two colours of green wool (two rows) then a row of the novelty yarn.  To start with it seemed very odd to be working with blue warp!

With a bit of artistic license I put in the distorted weft view.....

....then the sky.

My tension was better than last time but far from perfect.

 I thought if I left some openness the mingling of the colours would provide an extra dimension.  I was wrong but more of that later.

My choice of sky colours was dictated by the range on offer locally, ie no real choice at all.  I would have preferred a slightly paler blue.

With some trepidation I began to felt the sky using the shading technique I've learned.    I introduced some merino top wispy clouds.  This is the result.

The felting pulled the fabric in quite significantly.  Where I'd left the yarns more open the felting just didn't really happen which was disappointing.  I have overdone the pink a bit.

Where the shading colours joined the yarns pulled apart in the "shrinkage" that occurred.

This piece is quite small and neat and I have wondered if this is a slight regression.  I've only just learned to "let go" a bit.  On reflection though, it seems that I have followed an idea and chosen appropriate options to get an outcome.

Having been critical of what happened I am generally very happy with the piece of work now it's off the loom.  Considering it was a total shot in the dark I think it's better than I had hoped.

I think I've managed to get the summer day feeling I wanted and it looks like "the top of the world".

Some time later....

I felt increasingly unhappy with the colours of the sky; too dark a blue and too much pink.  I introduced more white to tone the blue down a bit and a tiny bit of yellow above the rape field.  I think it's a change for the better.  There's less harsh contrast.

The toned down blue

A bit of yellow above the field

Tellier-Loumagne,  Francoise,  2006, The art of  felt. Thames and Hudson, New York.