Handmade Felt Workshop

Felt Making

Felt is the oldest textile known to man. It predates weaving and knitting, in Turkey the remains of felt have been found, dating back to at least 6,500 BC. Felt is produced in many places in the world for such a diverse numbers of items such as: shoes, carpets art objects, tents, hats and jewellery.

Materials needed:
- Merino Wool Tops
- Warm water
-  Bar of soap
- Bubble wrap
- Netting
- Bamboo mat
- Towel or sugar paper

How To Make Felt

> Place the towel or sugar paper on a flat surface. Lay bubble wrap, bubble side up on the surface. Using Wool tops, pull the end fibres out gently and lay them down on the plastic in a square with all the fibres in the same direction.

> Leave a gap of approximately 2 cm clear between the edge of the fibres and the end the edge of the plastic. When you have created a fine but dense layer of fibres repeat the process but with the fibres laying in the opposite direction, making sure that you can't see the previous layer through the second layer.

> Repeat this process with the fibres running in the direction of the first layer and so on for about 3-4 layers.

>Boil the kettle and then get a small dish put a small amount of water from the kettle and then add a lot more cold water, so then the water is only warm.

> Place the netting over the top, sprinkle a small amount of warm water on top of the netting. Sweep the soap bar across the netting.

> With wet soapy hands rub over the netting, making sure that your hands are flat. If necessary, add some more water to ensure that the wool is "wetted" but not to much so that the piece is saturated.      

> Carry on rubbing until the fibres have bonded together, turn your piece over and repeat. Then you can roll it in the bamboo mat which increases the bonding process.

> Rinse out the piece in cold water, rinse out felt piece and roll it again in the bamboo mat. 


Health and Safety:

- Make sure that when boiling the water in the kettle, that you add enough cold water to it so you don't end up burning your hand when sprinkling it over the mesh.

- If there any spillages make sure to clean them up straight away.

The artist related to this workshop is Moy Mackay   

My Finished Piece

Week 2 - Response to artist
Here I have step by step images showing how I have created my piece
I had decided that I wanted to create a piece that showed a field with one sheep this relates to the pieces the artist has created with sheep involved.

I started by creating my background layer, made from white felt i then added my colour mixed of blue and white to create my sky.

I then decided on doing another colour mix where I took a light green and a dark this I used to represent grass I then took some orange felt and cut out a circle for the sun, i wanted it to stand out to create a more abstract approach.

I decided that I wanted create a fence, to do this I took a small amount of felt and started to twist it, this takes a while to do as this felt tries to unravel but eventually it stayed twisted. I repeated this several more times until completed.  

The next thing I created was the tree to do that i took a small amount of brown felt and made the truck, then like with my fence I took small amounts of felt and twisted it the difference with these twists where that I only twisted them at the top and the bottom.

Between the sky and the grass i had decided to add some small wavy parts of the teal felt, i felt that it would look more like Moy Mackay.

To create the sheep i started by getting some white felt which I rolled into a ball I then placed it on. For the face i got a small piece of black felt and like with the white i rolled it into a ball, to make the ears i pulled at the ball.

 The next steps are the same as the plain piece of felt i started by getting the mesh and placing it over the piece then i added the water over the top making sure to get all of the edges wet, then you take the bar of soap and rub it all over the mesh. With your hands rub over the netting making sure to keep  your hands flat. Flip the piece over and repeat the process.

  

This is what my piece looked like after I had flipped it over and rubbed it with the soap.

The next step was to put it into the bamboo mat. I had struggled with this this time as my piece was quite big and did not fit completely in the mat, but i just kept rolling it between my hands and then flipping it until it shrunk and was small enough to completely fit in the mat. 

After i had rolled it in the mat a few time i took it over to the sink and rinsed it our with cold water, this is how it turned out. I am happy with my final piece and feel that I have created something that looks similar to the artist's pieces.

'The Cheviot Line'

Here is an example of one of Moy Mackay's piece that includes sheep.

Stages Of Clay

1. Slurry - watered down clay in a muddy form, used to join other pieces of clay to each other.

2. Plastic - soft - Workable stage; moulding stage, can be recycled.

3. Leather hard - stiff, will hold its shape, join to other pieces, carve into and recycle.

4. Greenware - Bone dry, can be carved into but is very fragile

5. Bisqueware - fired once in the kiln can not be recycled - glazing stage.

Working With Clay - Health and Safety

One of the biggest health and safety concerns when working with clay, glaze, slips and plaster is dust.    
Powder residue can cause respiratory problems if used in poor conditions and without safety precautions.

Silica dust exposure and risk

Clay contains respirable crystalline silica, most of which is chemically combined with other materials. The crystalline silica that is not chemically combined is often referred to as 'free silica'.

Fine dust particles containing free silica are a major concern because they can:

> be invisible to the naked eye under normal lighting conditions.
> be airborne for long periods of time in your breathing zone.
> Breathing in silica dust may lead to a lung disease known as silicosis, this is a serious lung disease causing permanent disability and early death.
> 'Respirable' means that the dust can get to the deepest parts of the lung.

General Health and Safety - Clay Dust 

1. Use a damp sponge/cloth when cleaning surfaces, never dry brush.
2. Spillages of dry materials should be vacuumed up and not washed or wiped.

Pallant House

On the 16th of September 2014 we took a trip down to Pallant house, Chichester

There were several exhibitions including: De'Longhi Print room, Barbara Rae prints

The Scottish colourist : JD Fergusson and royal academician printmakers.

Barbara Rae

JD Fergusson

Throughout the whole of the gallery there was a wide variety of pieces from abstract to 3D and traditional.

There was several pieces that I had liked below is one of my favourite from that visit.

Paul Nash 1889 - 1949

Winter Wood 

1922

Wood engraving on paper

This piece was one of my favourite pieces in the exhibition although it's small i like the detail of the lines as the main colour is black it really shows the true message behind the piece.

Nash's experience of the war left him town between Vorticism and its embrace of the modern machine age, and the romantic tradition of the english landscape. there is a sinister feel to this engraving, depicting a solitary female entering the dark forest.

Nash's mother suffered from depression and died when he was a young man. He was intensely aware of his mortality and often spent time in the wood near his parents home.

Their Website: http://www.pallant.org.uk

9 North Pallant, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 1TJ  

Barbara Rae

Barbara Rae RA has made printmaking an integral part of her artistic activity since her student days. Monoprints, screenprints and etchings inform her approach to painting which combines the influence of landscape and travel with painterly abstraction.

Barbara Rae 'Harbour Night'

2005

Coloured etching and collagraph on zerkall paper.
Printed by Peacock Visual Arts, Aberdeen

'Harbour Night' is one of Rae's favourite prints.
In the words of the art critic Andrew Lambirth: "Yellow lines of energy or light cross the lower middle section like straws in the wind, while the pinks and purples block out the main volumes, overlaid by a fretwork of darker lines. It is a deeply satisfying image, uniting the skills of the technician at Peacock Visual Arts, Mike Waight, with the artists vision, in a compelling study of light and dark, line and volume, rhythm and clarity of statement."

Her pieces are so complex because to get the kind of result she wants there has to be quite a number of layers, this piece shows two boats in the harbour at night. one of my favourite quotes from Rae is "Im not a landscape painter. What interests me is anything altered by mankind's hand, historical components, things that make the spirit if a place." With her use of colours it proves that she tries to create piece of art that stray from the original image. I like this piece because it doesn't consist of very many colours but as they are all contrasting against each other  they all stand out from one another.
The part of this print that stands out the most to me is the white strip on the larger boat. i like that all of the colours that are used i this piece are not even close to the natural colour of the original landscape.


http://www.barbararae.com

Collagraph

Print Workshop

Inspired by Barbara Rae we were told that we were going to be making three collagraph plates

A collagraph is a collage printmaking technique where the image is created from a variety of textured materials glued to a cardboard base. This forms a relief block with different surface areas and textures.  

To create this you need these materials:

- Watercolour paper
- Blotting paper 
- Caligo safewash relief inks
- Tissue paper and newsprint
- Scrim
- Toothbrush  

- Thick cardboard plates

- lots of textured materials like : mesh, masking tape, tin foil, carborundum powder, thread, textured wallpaper etc.

- PVA glue
- Albion printing press and roller press

With this workshop we were told to create abstract pieces rather that creating a plate from a photograph.

Although these plates are abstract we had to take into the account the principles of design these are:
- Pattern
- Contrast
- Emphasis
- Balance
- Proportion/Scale
- Harmony
- Rhythm/Movement

Stage 1
The steps to create these plates are:

1. Look through the textured materials and decide which ones you are going to use for the first plate.
2. Design your plate making sure that when sticking then down with PVA glue all of them are secure, as you don't want them falling off when printing.
3. Once all of the PVA glue is completely dry, each plate has to have two to three coats of shellac. (Shellac is used as a protective coat so then the plates can be used over and over again.)
4. Once the shellac has dried you can start to print.

Stage 2

5. The first thing to do is get the next lot of equipment : ink, board, scrim and watercolour paper.
(Before you start to print you need to put some pieces of watercolour paper into water so it will be ready for when you want to print.)
6. take a small pea sized amount of ink and place it onto a board, to mix two inks you get a small piece of cardboard and add the colours together. To ink up your plates you take a small amounts of ink with scrim or a toothbrush. Work the ink into the plate in a circular motion. Once you feel that there is enough ink on the plate take the tissue paper and lightly buff it over the plate. 
7. Lay your collagraph on the printing bed face up. take a bit of the watercolour paper out of  soak and try to get the excess water off by placing it between the blotting paper, then lay it over the top of the plate and cover with the felt blankets.
8. Roll the collagraph through the press, carefully lift up the blankets and remove the finished print.

Health and Safety for this workshop is :

- Take care when using the printing press

- Keep work area clean and tidy 

- Wear gloves and an apron (if required)
- Keep the room ventilated