Another successful landscape class

I taught my landscape class at the home/studio of my friend Linda Van Alstyne this past weekend. It was a wonderful experience. I love Linda and envy her energy and enthusiasm. She is an incredibly talented artist and has been making felt for a long time. I have enjoyed her hospitality on other occasions and as always my stay at her house was a real treat. Her husband is a gourmet cook (I actually ate brussels sprouts and really liked them) and he took care of all of our meals so that we could just concentrate on the class and talking felt. What a sweet heart!
I thought the class went well. Everyone seemed to be having fun and they made some beautiful pieces. Here are the layouts.



The wet felt.

Here are the ladies working and having fun.

Robin doing some needling. 

 One of the criticisms about this class is that there is not enough time for the needle felting. It takes me several days to finish one of my felt landscapes so it is not surprising that students can not finish their pieces in two days. I am working on solutions to this problem. Here are the pieces at the end of class. I hope that those who did not finish will keep working on their pieces since they all came out lovely.

Linda did more needle felting on the piece that she had started in my class last year.

When I got home I worked on felting a commissioned table runner for a woman that I met at the opening for the Granby Land Trust art show. The customer wanted a piece that was based  on a felt done by Anna Moberly, whom I know from the guild. Anna had been given the commission first but she got too busy to make the runner. I contacted Anna to make sure that she didn't mind my using her design. The runner is really not my style of art but I enjoyed playing with the technique of embedding things in the felt.  It is supposed to be reminiscent of a river or stream in winter.
Here are the samples...

and the finished runner...which I delivered in time for the holiday. The woman was pleased enough to ask for place mats...without the stones of course.

And to top it all she gave a home to my rooster!