Zen Eucalyptus video ~ wet felted

Zen Eucalyptus (48x36 inches) by Jane LaFazio $2200.00

•  A short VIDEO of "Zen Eucalyptus"
• Description:
  Eucalyptus pods and leaves fractured by cutting into bits, chunks, and squares. In this case, reassembled and overlaid with circles to become nearly whole again if only in memory. A Zen meditation and tribute to the giant, regal, scented Eucalyptus tree with its colors of taupe, celadon and plum.
  Backstory:
  I start work with no concept of where it will go. This piece started with a single piece of hand made felt (wet-felted by me), cut into squares, and hand stitched individually. The meditative process of stitching is so enjoyable; I don’t need to know what will happen with the results. Another piece of hand made felt, another set of individually stitched squares. As I began to lay the piece out onto 48”x36” of pieced, hand dyed cotton batting, I realized I didn’t have enough squares to fill it up. Out to the garage to create another piece of hand made felt! The large size made it too difficult to hand stitch as one piece, so I assembled it by doing one quarter of the quilt at a time, intuitively arranging the squares of color to fill the space.
  I’m a native California, and, to me, the scent and multi-colors of the ubiquitous Eucalyptus trees are endlessly fascinating and beautiful. Early in my career as an artist I created a large watercolor painting of just the trunk of a 100 year old Eucalyptus, and framed it in Eucalyptus pods, because I wanted to retain the scent along with the image. Included in this piece, is also an earlier piece of hand made felt (by me) of the leaves and pods of the Eucalyptus.

BeBop supervises the composition of "Zen Eucalyptus"

FYI: I have an instructional DVD "Wet Felting Essentials for Fiber Artists" in my JaneVille Etsy shop. 

Wet Felting Essentials for Fiber Artists, starring me!

Turquoise Kisses

Turquoise Kisses (12x12 inches) by Jane LaFazio

detail Turquoise Kisses   by Jane LaFazio

detail Turquoise Kisses   by Jane LaFazio

detail Turquoise Kisses   by Jane LaFazio

And its sister piece. Both are available in my JaneVille Etsy Shop.

"Primary Message" (14x13 inches) by Jane LaFazio

I created both these pieces by wet felting wool roving. One of the things I love about making my own felt, that it's totally original cloth! And that it is really yummy to stitch on.

When I posted about my Hand Stitching, recently about Floss Away for storing my thread, Mary asked to see it in action. Here's mine, stuffed to capacity with thread!

My embroidery thread collection ~Jane LaFazio

Organized by color

You can take the bags off the ring when you need to ~Jane LaFazio

My embroidery thread collection ~Jane LaFazio

And if you'd rather make your own wool felt, here's my instructional DVD:

Wet Felting Essentials ~ Jane LaFazio

Wet Felting Essentials DVD inspires!

Wet felted piece ~ in progress ~  by Brigitte Otto

Completed piece ~ by Brigitte Otto

The piece above, by Brigitte Otto, was created after watching my new DVD 'Wet Felting Essentials for Fiber Artists." Pretty cool, huh? I love her design and then how she embellished it!

Wet Felting Essentials for Fiber Artists

You can leave your felting piece whole, like Brigitte did and I did below, in Paprika Construction Zone. Felt is such a pleasure to hand-stitch on.

Paprika Construction Zone (16x17 inches $125) by Jane LaFazio

Or, you can cut it up and reassemble you felted piece like I did, in the two below. Again, with oodles of hand-stitching.

Red Rock Petroglyphs (15x14 inches sold) by Jane LaFazio

Secret Symbols ~ by Jane LaFazio (12x12 inches. $275)

If you've watched my DVD and it has inspired you, let me know! I'd love to see what you made!

(Hey, did you know you can subscribe to my blog and get it in your email box every time I post? Go here and look in the upper right corner to add your email address)

My latest DVD ~ Wet Felting Essentials for Fiber Artists!

My Latest DVD (or digital download) is now available! Wet Felting Essentials for Fiber Artists.

Here I am on set at Quilting Arts filming studio in Cleveland, Ohio

me and the fabulous Vivika DeNegre,
editor of Quilting Arts Magazine, and some of my felted pieces.

Here's the description:

You'll love this if:

• You're intrigued by wool roving but don't know who you'd use it.
• You adore composing one-of-a-kind works of fiber art and want to dive into wet felting.
• You are looking for a felting technique that doesn't require many materials to get started.

Create innovative fiber art with wet felting techniques, embroidery and more!

Join artist Jane LaFazio, one of today's most sought-after teachers, to learn the ancient technique of wet felting. Jane guides viewers step-by-step through the process of creating one-of- a-kind fiber art using just sheep's wool, water, soap, and a fair amount of elbow grease. While making the felted fabric, she adds design and visual interest to the finished product by including contrasting graphic shapes and writing with pre-felted wool roving. Then she shows you how to take the piece further with hand needle felting and embroidery. Jane also shows how she cuts apart the felted wool and reassembles the pieces into award-winning fiber art, and gives you examples of other ways to use wet felting to create art. This introduction to wet felting is a perfect starting point for anyone interested in creating felted quilts and expanding their fiber art techniques.

Discover the tools and materials you need to create a unique piece of wool felt.
Watch and learn how to create a piece of felt with step-by-step demonstrations from Jane.
Explore composition considerations and design possibilities with helpful hints from Jane.
Be inspired as Jane shares more projects that use wool roving in interesting ways.

And, I quote Vivika (Quilting Arts magazine editor) "Download your copy of Wet Felting Essentials for Fiber Artists now, and have some good, clean, fiber fun."

Secret Symbols

"Secret Symbols" detail by Jane LaFazio

"Secret Symbols" detail by Jane LaFazio

I think we all have a unique visual vocabulary. Symbols we use and reuse in our artwork. Often, not even knowing what they mean, or where they came from. They just seem to want to be in our work.

"Secret Symbols" detail by Jane LaFazio

"Secret Symbols" detail by Jane LaFazio

"Secret Symbols" detail by Jane LaFazio

"Secret Symbols" detail by Jane LaFazio

The squares are all created by me, using the wet felting process with wool roving. 

"Secret Symbols" 12x12 inches by Jane LaFazio

My process. In Technicolor.

work in progress ~ by Jane LaFazio

work in progress ~ by Jane LaFazio

work in progress ~ by Jane LaFazio

work in progress ~ by Jane LaFazio

My process, as seen above. Cut it up! Stitch the heck out of it! Sew it back together.

Technicolor Pictograph (13x13 inches) by Jane LaFazio

Technicolor Pictograph (detail) by Jane LaFazio

Technicolor Pictograph (detail) by Jane LaFazio

Technicolor Pictograph (detail) by Jane LaFazio

Technicolor Pictograph (detail) by Jane LaFazio

Technicolor Pictograph (detail) by Jane LaFazio

I might as well tell you. I'm heading to Cleveland, Ohio later this month to film an instructional DVD for F&W Media (Interweave aka Quilting Arts) tentatively titled "Intro to Wet Felting." I'll be showing you how to do all of this on the DVD!

The American Southwest is always an inspiration for me.

Red Rock Petroglyphs (detail) by Jane LaFazio

Red Rock Petroglyphs (14x13 inches) by Jane LaFazio

Sedona, Canyon de Chelly, Santa Fe, Taos.

Arizona and New Mexico. The beautiful and dramatic Southwest. The colors of those landscapes stay with me. They are so evocative of the history, the heritage, and the deep and rich Native American culture. 

I've been working with the warm colors of red, orange and yellow (oh, I mean carmine, bittersweet, and goldenrod) for quite awhile now. 

My intuitive stitching often leads me to simple circles and sometimes primitive marks.

And that all takes me to the Southwest!

Red Rock Petroglyphs (detail) by Jane LaFazio

Red Rock Petroglyphs (detail) by Jane LaFazio

The photos below, are a work in progress. And what do you know, the same color scheme!

Unnamed and inprogress by Jane LaFazio

I'll show you this when I've put it all together. 

Unnamed and inprogress by Jane LaFazio

Wet-felted purses

"Wet Felted Purses" by Jane LaFazio

detail "Red Purse" by Jane LaFazio

detail "Red Purse" by Jane LaFazio

"Red Purse" by Jane LaFazio

These were made by wet felting. Using wool roving and water and agitation. They take about 2 hours to make, and then, of course, I embellished them with hand stitching.

"Blue and Brown Purse" by Jane LaFazio

detail "Blue and Brown Purse" by Jane LaFazio

"Blue and Brown Purse" by Jane LaFazio

(I know I haven't been showing my sketchbook lately, but I've been busy stitching. Don't let me be a bad example to you! My online class "Sketching and Watercolor: Journal Style" is open for registration right now! It's perfect for beginning drawing and watercolor, or as an excellent refresher! All the details are here. Register here.)