Snowmen Time Again

Okay as much as I hate to admit that the summer is gone, I do enjoy the Fall colours and the time in my studio. Having just come back from a month backpacking through Greece, I found the adjustment interesting. And yet, three weeks have passed and lying on the beach seems a long way away.
My studio is now filling up with snowmen and items for the winter markets.
The snowmen will be available at the Red Barn Market on November 7th, and at Craft Culture December 12 & 13th. They are all packed and ready to go....
Amy & I will be teaching a needle felting workshop at the Rotary Centre for the Arts on November 1,2015, if you are interested in learning to make them yourself.
Contact me at coloursparks@gmail.com for details or visit our Facebook page

Never to old to play with Snowmen

Snowman Workshop on November 15,2014

I've made a lot of snowmen this fall. I was having so much fun making them and then lining them up in my studio so they could smile upon me. Though they all were a bit different, they were definitely my style
The snowmen from my students had a different look and it was lots of fun to see them create.
Now, I am sure, their snowmen are smiling upon their faces now.

 My snowmen will be on sale at Bottega on November 29/30, 2014

Okay, Snowmen are cute too

I know its summer and I am really not trying to hurry up the winter, but these guys are just cute.
I have spent the last couple of days in the studio playing with snowmen and I was having fun. It's so much warmer to make them out of wool than snow.
I love the way each one takes on a personality of its own and together they are group.

They will be available for sale at Etsy Made in Canada Market on September 27, 2014 at  Sandhill Winery located at 1125 Richter St, Kelowna

Prefelts are Fun

 Prefelts are a great addition to my felting supplies. At first I thought I had to make them myself. They were very pretty as I added all of my different fibers and colours and they were very interesting. At some point, I realized that they were the alot of work and I found a source to purchase prefelts. It is so much easier to just cut up the already made prefelts and focus on my design element.

What is a Fibre Addict to Do?

Morning Madness Mohair Locks 4 oz

I purchased a mohair fleece from Vancouver Island and I have been spending my days dyeing it one pot at a time. I like vat dyeing...I begin with one colour, dye the fibre, then add another colour, then another, then another...I end up with way too much.
Right now, I have 21 acid dyes and I am almost finished the set. I have had to refrain, of course, from purchasing more colours....I decided I would finish this set and then I was free to experiment with different colours.
I actually take notes and samples and I have found that the colours are really consistent.
I have realized that the dyeing part is what fascinates me the most...its like magic...you fill a pot of water, put in a powder...add your
wool...and voila...colour.
The colour witch is alive and well and living in Kelowna...ha ha.

The mixtures pictured here are available in my etsy store
ColourSparks on Etsy

Dawn's Finest Hour Mohair Locks 4 oz

Perfect Hair Mohair Locks 4 oz

Blue Danube Mohair Locks 4 oz

If I Told You My Story...Would You Listen? 4th Year Show

 My pieces are now in the Fina Gallery at UBCO as part of the 4th year graduating class. The piece with the steel sculpture and felt balls is called What Colour Are You? and the piece with the felted heads is called If I Told You My Story Would You Listen. 
What is not visible hear in the picture is that one of the heads has a speaker in it and it repeatedly asks the same questions...trying to call attention to the viewer. The colourful ball sculpture has a motor in the middle which stirs the balls.

What Colour Are You?

Welded Steel and Wool Fleece

My work has dealt with the exploration of combining wool and steel and trying to find a balance between the two. I have concluded that the steel often ends up being a support or container for the wool. The idea that the steel could be construed as masculine and the wool as female was my original starting point. I felt the need to defend the idea that working in wool and using it as a sculpture tool is not to be designated as craft but serious art. In the end I was lead to the conclusion of “who cares”. The steel is stronger and holds the wool and that’s okay....just as the wool is soft and colourful and allows the steel to shine.

This piece is my attempt to display a visual reference for the oneness of mankind. People, though they may look different and believe different things are all human beings made of flesh and soul and spirit.

The idea that your life does not affect mine is for me an illusion and construe of society to allow bad things to happen in the name of the greater good. I believe that even though you live in a far away country and I have no visible relationship to you...your life affects mine in the matrix of mankind. The reality that you live in will change the reality that I live in and vice versa

If I Told You My Story...Would You Listen?

Wool Fleece and Media

This installation piece is the beginning of a larger piece that will explore the stories we tell about the lives we live. The faces are the untold stories of women as they meet and interrelate with one another. I want the viewer to listen to the stories that are told but I also want the viewer to imagine and hear the story themselves by looking at the faces and listening to what they hear.

My Studio

It is really fun to finally have a studio...I can leave my mess and no one can complain because its my space. This picture is at the beginning before I got all my stuff into it. I have collected a fair amount of metal and have eased out into the middle space. Avery...my visa a vie studio partner doesn't mind as she has moved out and we meet in the middle.
My faces are coming along...I have quite a few more now and intend to have alot by April...watch for pictures from the 4th year mid term show

Felting Workshop with Jorie

I went to a felting workshop with Jorie Johnson in Vancouver this past weekend. It was fun to take an early morning flight out of Kelowna .....you sure know you live in a small place when you meet 2 people you know at the airport at 5:15 a.m.

I learned alot...especially on how to be more careful with my initial setting up. It sometimes is easier to take the time in the beginning than spend time fixing your mistakes. I learned some new techniques and I learned how other people teach felting and how the equipment you use is a sure sign on where you learned to felt. My teacher, Franziska, learned in Sweden...so bubble wrap and all that rolling is knew to me. Though I understand that my felting board is not good for everything I sure wouldn't part with it.

Sculpture and Hats

I am still fascinated by faces sculptured in wool. I really have no desire to make them look like someone or some character, I prefer to leave them vague so that the viewer can do the interpreting. I want the faces to invoke in the viewer an idea of what this face is about...the stories behind the face. As I begin my 4th year project, I find myself enjoying the vagueness of what these faces could be or what stories they will tell. As I finished this blue hat...a combo of my stash...think I will make more for Fabulous Finds...I put it on my face to photograph and all of a sudden the story was there. My challenge is how to get this face to talk....though Alek, my professor, has given me some ideas...I don't know if I'll get there this fall.

Random acts of kindness

 This is the bench, that the people who own Sunrise Vineyards, put beside the bus stop that is in front of their driveway. I stand at this bus stop numerous times in the week, the only lady in my neighbourhood who does, and was awed by the presence of this bench.  I saw the gentleman on Thursday and thanked him for putting it there and he said that he sees people standing at the stop and thought it would be a good idea..
Yess...its a good idea and thank you for putting it there. Since I live in a neighbourhood where people don't take the bus, the bus stop is...like on the side of the road...and if the bus driver sees you and stops that's great. One day I was wearing a hot

 pink top and an orange skirt and he drove right by me....he did hear my screams and eventually stopped.
Anyway, thank you Mr. Mueller for your random act of kindness.
p.s. Luka wasn't really that grumpy, it was 8 a.m. but the weather was warm and the view was great and in the end...life isn't that bad

Spinning or Felting: That is the question

 I can't decide whether or not I should spin this batt that I carded up. My husband thinks its prettier the way it is and he is right, it is pretty. I could use it to felt with or I could sell it on etsy. It is a mixture of the BFL I bought this year and dyed, plus silks, mohair, and icicle that I also dyed. Once I spun the other 3 batts, the colours mixed and it is a yarn full of life. I made a baby hat out of the blue skein I had spun as they are only about 50 yds.
I ordered a new flyer for my spinning wheel, so that I could spin larger skeins as this is the max that my 

 flyer can manage.

Dyeing Black and Grey

 Even though I am rather colour obsessed, when I bought the dyes I included black, grey, brown. I, of course, left those colours to the end. The brown was deep and rich and certainly an addition to my collection. So when I reached the last two dyes, black and grey, it took a little encouragement to actually do them. Once done, the BFL black was so deep and powerful and the silver silk was glowing.
Now that I have gone through all my colours once, I didn't want to go back to the beginning and do them again. So this time I took 2 colours and combined them to see what would happen. This time violet and hot pink made an awesome purple and well, what do we call that pink. Chartreuse and Emerald created a blend that is in between both of them and the second dye bath produced a blue green on the icicle. It sure was fun. Now if the weather gets nice again, I will continue with my mixed dyes. The first picture is the Blue Face Leicester and the second picture is the silk, mohair and icicle. Fun how they take on the colours differently

Abstraction and Soap

I think its fun to make the fleece covered soap. Everytime I make one it ends up more elaborate. I am not really one for needle felting images onto the soap as you often seen on Etsy. The first ones I made were mostly different colours, but now they are colour and texture and fibre and things hanging off of them. I am not surprised that they resemble my paintings. As I was making the last ones, I felt as if I was using different textures and mediums just like I did in my paintings. I want them to be interesting. I want one to be able to discover all the different nuances of colour and texture in this small surface.I went to the health food store and bought a natural soap from Mountain Sky was in crafted here in British Columbia in the Kootenay's.They even have my favourite flavour Fennel.
http://www.mountainskysoap.com/