Katrin is an artist and designer working primary with wool as a ‘painting’ medium. Although she enjoys using wool in a craft application during hand spinning and weaving, she finds that during needle felting (also known as dry felting) there is more scope for letting her imagination run away.
Katrin’s starting point is always a photograph, painting or drawing of her own and during this process she is already looking at form and colour in her subject matter. Carrying ideas across to wool involves careful blending of dyed locks using carding brushes to create new shades and mix colours in the same way as one would mix paint. Layers of fibre are built up and attached to one another using a barbed felting needle that simply latches the individual hairs to one another to form felt. Wool from different varieties of sheep allows for different effects with curls giving more texture than smoother types. Different needles allow for finer work and detail.
Katrin’s subject matter tends to focus on landscapes, although recently she worked on a series of flower studies based on sketches from her garden during the summer months.
Working with wool not only gives visual reward from the use of colour but also the pleasure of working with a soft and comforting medium which has been known to man for thousands of years yet is still being pushed in new directions.
Many of her wool art pictures are available as cards and printed items through her website and she periodically offers workshops in needle felting methods.
