Kerry Thomas

Fulraw Fibrecrafts. 

I am a part-time artist and I make pictures either by needle-felting, or by mixed media and collage. My needle-felted pictures use fibres mainly of wool and silk which I purchase from cruelty-free sources, often directly from the animal owners themselves, and that is important to me.

My other art work includes painting and mixed media, based on techniques in art journaling and collage. There are links between these and my needle-felting pictures because both involve layering, and adding elements of other mediums to the base fibres, or paint. I very much enjoy the mix of divergent and convergent processes, and the experimentation in these, and knowing that if something about either type of picture doesn’t suit, it can easily be removed or painted over, and a new one is created out of it. I enjoy the tactility of whatever I am working with, whether wools and other fibres with their different textures, or the paint, inks and collage pieces. The breeds of sheep whose wool I have been using interest me from a historical perspective, too, and knowing the backgrounds of some of the rare breeds whose fibres I am using is also significant tome. I embellish some of these pictures with free-motion machine embroidery, mixing techniques of needle-felting with wet-felting, and create textile pieces using other fabrics and yarns such as silk noile, dupion silk, organza, velvet, and so on. My mixed media paintings involve mainly acrylic quick-drying paints, with washi tape, stencils and stamping inks, and other elements of collage papers, feathers and metallic flakes. My work desk is never clear!