I am a self-taught, life-long drawing and painting artist, in addition to being an avid third generation gardener. I was very pleased to have even a brief opportunity to learn from the renowned fibre artist from Scotland, Moy MacKay, at her October, 2018, tutorial held at Orangeville, Ontario
I paint mostly landscapes in a variety of pigment media. In 2015, I was introduced to wet and dry felting manipulations to create landscape "paintings" which exhibit depth and contrasting textures within a two-dimensional canvas. I also enjoy demonstrating my technique at felting festivals, as well as, teaching introductory and advanced felting lessons at a number of locations each year, listed in my events section.
I often work from a photo as my starting point and, using the wool fibres, I layer the composition's colours working from background to foreground. The resulting stack of fibre can get quite high, until it is "wet felted" by using boiling water and soap and then applying a rubbing technique to the surface to agitate and break-up the wool fibres, which bonds the fibres together in a common field.
Fibre arts are being recognized more in the wider world of art. With my background in painting with oils and acrylics, I use a similar painterly approach to "painting" with wool. I visualize the colours in my felt pieces exactly the same way I paint. To date, I have mostly created landscapes, and I have been enjoying creating scenes of storms, fire, and celestial light, working to capture the energy and feel of these dramatic scenes from nature.