Looking back at my felting course.

Oh,boy. I've been pretty busy lately and I haven't even told you anything about my week away. The classes were held at the studios of Raewyn Penrose, a well known felting artist in New Zealand. The little place of Te Aroha was a surprise for me; very quaint and as if time had stood still for a few decades .

Above is the domain, right in front of the studio. It has some old colonial buildings and thermal pools. A natural geyser was spouting up above the smaller building in the background, so now and then. Guess who forgot her swimsuit?

Do click on the picture, it will show far more detail.

These are the upstairs studios, where we spend 5 creative days. Raewyn is a very lucky woman to have so many rooms available. It's at the top of a supermarket.

But how does she get any work done..? All the windows look out on this ever changing bush scene ; sometimes sunny, sometimes wet and wild, then all misty and spooky.

I took a lot of photos, the zoom is great on my camera. I saw woodpigeons and tuis swooping and diving amongst the trees. We also heard moreporks calling in between the rain storms at night.
Some of the students on one of the last days, called away from their work to listen to our teacher. Some of the more noteable ladies there (for me) were ; 2nd left Jill Gun, an amazing needle felting artist who constructs huge fantasy creatures. 1st by the window is Raewyn Penrose, who had organized this week, and her husband in the doorway, who made us wonderful food ;everyday a new exotic soup with homebaked bread. And scones, and cakes. And woodsmoked mussels. Gourmet pizzas... Yum!

Next to Raewyn my friend Heather (who will be celebrating her 70th birthday this year) and friend Rita, we 3 shared a camping flat for the week. Cheap and cheerful.
And of course the star of the week; our tutor Anita Larkin on the far right. She turned out to be a very patient and skillful teacher. It was amazing how she was able to switch between each persons' project, which were all complicated projects, involving much 3-d and inside-out and back to front thinking. Very impressive.

This was a colour exercize, drawing objects on the table with wool sliver, then cutting it up and re-arranging, to get abstract shapes.

Still dry before the felting process...
This is the finished result. The people at home were not really impressed, but I liked the process and the results too. I also made jewellery, and a little tree and a very large hollow sculpture, which I will show another time.

It was a marvelous week, very inspiring indeed.