On fire again

So Arts Week is over. I am shattered. We went out with a bang and the last day brought two great sales. The first was my hearts:-

I am quite relieved to see it go, as it wasn't really my style and I was beginning to feel a little awkward about the sentiment in it. But for another person, the French "Je t'aime depuis le moment ou mes yeux ont rencontre les tiens" meant something altogether better and lovelier and more appropriate. I'm not sure I can tell the beautiful story yet as it could spoil a special anniversary surprise if a certain wife reads this, but suffice it to say that I have told the story to 3 people who proceeded to well up in tears.

Then I sold my original flowery picture, the one with the amazing purple mount that my brother had done:-

Weirdly this one was bought by someone I know from school. She said that her daughter told her one of the teachers had said someone's mum was doing Arts Week. She had looked through the brochure but couldn't find a name she recognised. So she flicked through again and out of nearly 100 picked just one she fancied that she would visit - she saw the picture and then saw my name and recognised it. She loved the picture and said she'd just lost her mum and had been left some money and had thought of buying some art, keeping at the back of her mind that her mum had loved flowers and loved purple. She kept looking at it and giggling! It was also odd that some of the flowers were ones I'd seen and photographed at school back in September - she knew the ones I meant. It was meant to be.

So that's it. I have lost count whether I have sold 9 or 10 out of the 21 I took along, which I gather is pretty good going for Arts Week. But more than everything I am greatly encouraged by everything that happened. New leads, new ideas, a better idea of what sells and what people like, but more than anything a big bucket full of encouragement that I can hopefully carry around with me for a while without spilling too much over the sides.

Now on to my next felting challenge. I was worried it would feel really empty this week without Arts Week but I haven't had time to think about that yet. The Great Fire of London is beckoning again and I had promised I would go into the children's school and show them some felting. So yesterday I had around 20 5, 6 and 7 year olds making felted flames. They loved it! I wouldn't say the quality is the best and some of them might disintegrate before they get them home, but for now they look great and they had good fun getting covered in soap suds. I have set aside every afternoon this week so should get through all 85 Key Stage One children by the end of the week. I will try to take some photos to show you if I get a chance (and a moment when the camera won't get covered in soap).





On fire...

More pieces framed in readiness for North Somerset Arts Week and things are hotting up. I made a facebook page for our venue and we are getting plenty of "likes" from the people we know (we need plenty more though to really spread the word). The room itself has had a good tidy and clean this week too and we are starting to get a vision of how things will look. I have had my September picture back from my brother yesterday and I had forgotten how pleased with it I was:-

In its tiny version in the Arts Week brochure it looks a bit less than impressive but in person I think it packs a punch, especially with the purple mount and amazing frame my brother picked for it. At the other end of the scale I am also pleased with my latest sea pictures in their box frames. Here is a little glimpse of one (again excuse the photography, I think I will need to get some training in this if this blog is to ever get off the ground):-

In the meantime I seem to have landed myself a new and enormous project. I was helping out at school on Wednesday as usual and suddenly heard some words coming out of my own mouth before the brain had kicked in to shut them up. Why does that keep happening to me more than ever before? My offspring have started a topic on the Great Fire of London and I found myself suggesting that we could get three classes of children making felted flames that we could put together into a big felted scene of the fire. Originally I had a vision of a simple night scene of a street (black silhouettes of houses with a sunset sky) but as time goes on I am starting to veer towards half-timbered houses. I thought it would be useful to see what the children might be capable of, so after school last night the three of us had a practice at flames. They loved the process and the results look pretty good (of course flames are great to make because they can be any shape and if colours move about while they are being rubbed, so much the better):- 

It turns out that mine was not at all the best one, maybe you need to be seven to be extra good at felting! The only issue with the whole thing is the size it will have to be to fit 85 children's flames on; it could well need to be about 6 feet long and my biggest felting project to date was about half that. Oh and I am happy showing my two what to do but the thought of showing another 83 (under the beady eyes of trained professionals) is pretty daunting if I think about it for more than a couple of seconds at a time. Still, everyone needs a challenge sometimes and my friend Laura has been urging me to do something like this for well over a year. These things are all meant to be...





First things first...

Hmm so here it is, my very first post on my very first blog. It is a bit like having an empty piece of paper in front of me and not knowing what to draw. Shall I start with the story of my feltmaking before I start on some other random rant? OK here goes: I did my first bit fo feltmaking a few years ago at the wonderful Spinning Weal in Clevedon and was to be honest not that inspired. The breakthrough came last year when I bought a new sewing machine; I wondered what it would be like to machine-stitch over my felted pictures (which were a bit fuzzy and needed a bit of stitch-led definition). I thought it worked and so did a lot of friends and family. After a lot of positive feedback and a summer to think about it, I thought it might be good to try selling it - not necessarily for the money but just to see if I could, to get a buzz from the feeling that somebody out there liked it enough to pay good money for it. Well that hasn't happened yet but I am trying to remain quietly positive. It has taken a few months to get a "portfolio" together of some of my favourite types of pictures and of some new ideas, in the hope that I have something that might appeal to anyone, and in the process getting some more experience with some different techniques. Below are a few...


This was inspired by some flowers I photographed all on the same day last September.

Sea pictures are my very favourites; I could do these all day every day and I love the way the felting process makes everything move around in an unpredictable sea-like way.

 

I did one after being really inspired by Moy Mackay's art:-

 

 

 

Then on a bit of a floral theme I went for some nasturtiums. Just should have used some brighter colours I think...



 

I am really lucky to have a brother with an amazing framing workshop and gallery (Artfellows in Fakenham, Norfolk) and he has three of these waiting for a prospective owner but no takers as yet. I would like to think I am not barking up the wrong tree as it's taken me ages to find a medium I felt happy with and I'm sure this is it. I have more to show you but this will do for now...