Thanks to the PTA, the children in Key Stage Two of the Preparatory School have been enjoying a series of day long workshops with artist Gill Ferguson.
Gill, who lives near Arnside, is a skilled artist working in collage, needle felt and felted pictures.
Choosing a theme of the natural landscape, the classes worked on three different landscapes.
Year 5 and Year 6 worked together to create beautiful felted scenes inspired by bluebell woods.
Year 4 took inspiration from fields of poppies, which linked well to their recent work on Remembrance.
Year 3 rose to the challenge of creating fields of daisies, not an easy task for such young children.
The workshops began with Gill explaining that felt is created from sheep’s fleece. She showed the children examples of her work from previous workshops, as well as pieces she makes for craft fairs. The children also practised transforming light, airy sheep’s wool into a felted bead by rubbing and rolling the wool between their hands.
Gill then helped the children split their long rolls of felt in two and create a layer of white felt to act as an A4 background sheet.
Next, they used coloured felt to form their sky and foreground, blending colours and splitting the wool with “soft hands”.
Finally, the children selected their own colours to add detailed flowers, grasses and leaves in the foreground.
After lunch, the children worked in groups to transform their fluffy pictures into felt. To do this, they first had to “wet and then set” their pictures by adding water and pressing down with their hands. Once the pieces were wet, they were rolled inside large bamboo blinds. Each child completed one hundred rolls while the rest of the class counted. This pressure from rolling and pressing bonds the wool fibres and fixes the pieces together.
Although the workshops ended with the school day, there was still more to be done. Gill took the pictures home to wash and dry them.
A big thank you to Gill and to the PTA for funding this wonderful event. The finished pieces are a credit to the children, and we know they will be treasured for years to come.