Random 2016/2017 School Moments in Pictures

Playing with Surface Design Techniques

After a gruelling school year, I took a few moments to restore myself by playing with colour and texture. These are the results of my experiments.

Understanding (Re)conciliation through Art Making

I have created a piece of art (pictured above) that represents my present understanding of the complexities of the (re)conciliation process with Indigenous peoples in Canada. Each circle represents an element of (re)conciliation. More specifically, my art piece represents the words in the word cloud (pictured below). Significantly, most of the circles overlap one another representing the ways that the individual elements of (re)conciliation are interconnected. I chose to use the circle as my inspiration because of its significance with regards to notions of life cycles, knowledge and power, unbreakable strength, equity and relationships.

Winter Wonderland

Inspired by our lovely snow fall yesterday - and particularly inspired by a break from marking! - I made this small winter scene for a custom order. It truly is the holiday season!

Figurative Felting

So, I am at the final stage of my surface design course - the individual project phase.  For this piece, I attempted to do a "life felting" (instead of "life drawing") for the very first time.  I used the following techniques from Fiona Duthie's course to complete the piece: exotic fibres, tape, nuno inclusions, flat prefelt and surface stitches.

This was an exciting project as I really had no idea how the final product would turn out.  It was also intellectually challenging because I had to employ the various felting techniques at different stages of the felting process which required that I act deliberately and plan ahead.  In the past, my work has typically used one or two surface design elements that were applied during the layout phase so this definitely was a departure from the usual.  I am excited about this new approach as it adds a layer of complexity to my work that has been missing.

This is another piece that I did which required a similar level of planning and deliberation.  In fact, I prepared a planning drawing for this one:

Overall, I am very happy that I enrolled in this felting surface design course with Fiona Duthie.  Working away at the lessons taught me many new techniques while the individual project forced me out of my comfort zone and into creating something more complex than most of my earlier work.  I definitely recommend this course (http://www.fionaduthie.com/workshops/surface-design-in-feltmaking-online-workshop/) to anyone wanting to up their felting "game."

 

Surface Design Online with Fiona Duthie

This summer, as a treat for myself, I am taking an online course in surface design for felt makers  (http://www.fionaduthie.com/workshops/surface-design-in-feltmaking-online-workshop/) from Fiona Duthie (http://www.fionaduthie.com), a professional Canadian artist in her field who teaches all around the world.  The work that she produces inspires me to deepen my own felting practice and to 'raise my game'!

Below are a few highlights from the course so far.

Fibres and Bases

Resists Under Wool

Nuno Inclusions

Beechwood Market - one down, four more to go!

Today, I participated in my first of five market days in the Beechwood Village area of Ottawa.  Although the weather was wet and cold, we loaded up the car and set out.  Notwithstanding a leaky tent, the day was successful and pleasant - thanks to the much needed help of @medprodigy and to everyone who ventured out today.

All packed and ready to go!

The full set up, under the protective canopy of my tent.

I will exhibit my work in four more market days over the summer, on June 25th, July 2nd, August 13th and August 20th.