May 2017 - Jane Mercer Felt Artist

Hanging an art exhibition : 6 most important lessons I learnt

Do you ever walk around an amateur art exhibition and think fantastic I love it? Do you ever walk around an amateur art exhibition and think what a load of rubbish? What makes the difference between the two? Is it the art or is it the way it is all hung? I learnt many lessons in recently hanging an art exhibition. Hanging an art exhibition: my first lesson Think ahead. Think a very long time ahead. If you are going to invite other artists to participate ask them at least 6 months of more in advance. If you don't you will find them too busy to take part. Think about the artists and their work, before you ask them. Is your exhibition based on a theme or a technique? Make sure everyone is very clear what the theme of the exhibition means. The second lesson: Pricing problems Everything needs to be priced. …

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28/05/2017

British wool fibres / Natural dyeing

Should I dye with an aluminium or a brass pan ?

A few weeks ago I was lucky to come across this beautiful brass pan in a charity shop. Of course, I bought it. How could I not? So I now have two aluminium jam pans, one enamel pan, one teflon coated pan and my new brass pan. All either bought second hand or given to me. The question I want to answer is does the pan I use for dyeing make a difference to the final dye colours. Brass I understand from Wikipedia is made from copper and zinc. Copper acts as a mordant as does aluminium. I thought the only way to answer to my question was an experiment. The same dyestuff, the same fibres and the same dye process. Then I can see if the pan material makes a difference. I just happened to have quite a large quantity of hawthorn flowers. So the terms of my experiment could be…

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21/05/2017

Natural dyeing / Wet felting

It’s May : Harvesting time for natural dye materials

Suddenly the weather in the North East of England has got sunny and reasonably warm. Of course, it is not forecast to last long! One of the challenges of making naturally dyed felt art is to keep sufficient stock of your natural dye materials. So while the sun is shining and the sap is rising I need to get out and harvest supplies of natural dye materials to store for the rest of the year. Nettles Abundantly available and easy to pick with some sharp scissors and some good gardening gloves. I am now drying my harvest, to use later. I have not dried nettles before so it will be interesting to see how the colour is affected by the drying process. Dock One of my favourites. as it dyes silk such a wonderful olive colour. I have used dock successfully as a dried natural dye material and so out…

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14/05/2017

Tun house

Framing / Textile art / Wet felting

My secrets for framing felt art work

I have explored many different ways of framing felt art. For my next exhibition, I want wooden frames to hang on the gallery walls. I know that framing felt art and textiles in this way is controversial but if my textile work is competing with other art I believe it must be framed. Here is an interesting article from the textileartist site on framing. I choose to simply frame with no glass because I wanted the textures of the felt to be highly visible - within the grasp of the viewer. Getting my felt art professionally framed is not an option as it is just too expensive. My first secret for framing felt art The first step is to stretch the felt art across some stretcher bars. I am a big fan of stretcher bars, they are simple to use and come in multiple sizes. Far far more flexible than buying canvases.…

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07/05/2017