Meet the felt artist inspired by the Yorkshire countryside

“It was an arable farm with mainly animals,” says Janine. Rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters and a pony were among the pets the family kept and while she loved each and every one, it is the legacy of the four sheep they kept that continues to live on through her felt work.

In her Aberford home, a series of mood boards document the process of Janine’s preparation for the felt works she is showing in Entangled: An exhibition by the International Feltmakers, Region 10 portraying the impact of industry on the natural environment.” Janine’s contributions to the exhibition, which opens on May 18 and runs for a year at Armley Mills, Leeds, are two pieces of work for which her four woolly friends from childhood perfectly fitted the brief. “Obviously you cannot have a woollen industry unless you have sheep,” says Janine. Landscapes criss-crossed on family walks through the Yorkshire Dales, the colour palettes ever changing with the seasons, were captured on Janine’s camera to provide the natural background for her felt sheep to roam.

Using a photograph of her four sheep from the family album, and the landscape image taken on her camera on family walks, she initially sketched the landscape in oil pastels creating a collage with her four sheep in the foreground and added her friend’s sheep dog in for humorous effect. In a reversal of roles, the flock are facing the dog showing it who’s boss. Manipulating the oil pastels with her fingers, Janine says it enables her to literally get the feel for her work which she translates into felt.

“I did my degree in fine art, painting and drawing and by doing the oil pastel first I can get that painty feeling for the image which I can translate into wool, so it looks like a painting.” Demonstrating this intriguing process, Janine takes some colourful strands of Merino and Corriedale wool. “These are finer wools and are quite soft and it is easier if you are doing landscapes, but if you want to do something 3D you want to use coarser wool that is harder wearing,” she explains. Laying the piece of pre-felt on bubble wrap, pre-felt can be pre-bought or made from scratch in the wet felting process Janine demonstrates, she lays the coloured strands of wool across the piece. Carding different colours of wool mixes the colours, like an artist achieving the same effect with brush, paint and palette, and is evidently effective for blending natural landscapes. Once the design is complete, Janine places a piece of netting, similar to tuille, over the strands of wool and covers it with warm soapy water to shrink it down.

Rubbing it with her special felt stone creates the friction to bind the design together. “The water, soap and friction binds the material together to make it into one piece.” She also uses a special roller, similar to a wooden rolling pin with grooves, to roll and press the design. This also helps with the binding process. Once complete, the net is removed and the design is rolled up in a mat.

“It can take 45 minutes to an hour just wetting it, rolling it and shrinking it down,” says Janine. “You need to shrink it down 15 to 20 per cent. When you use warm water it opens up the wool scales and they lock together to make the felt.” Needle felting can add in additional detail. “Wet felting is not necessarily a precise process, but needle felting gets more detailed and precision. The sheep were just needle felted in after I had finished it.” Each sheep took four hours to complete, and Janine hand-stitched patches of purple heather into the design.

Her second piece for the exhibition focuses on the importance of the canal flowing beside Armley Mills. Using maps provided by Leeds Industrial Museum, Janine interpreted the ariel view of the mill and the canal into her felt artwork which will hang alongside her sheep design in the exhibition.

Re-creating the buildings beside the canal added a new dimension to Janine’s work. Spending her childhood in rural surroundings, landscapes have always been a natural draw for Janine.

Her foray into felt art came through a love of tea and cakes as she explains.

“I used to bake a lot when I was younger. It comes from my Nanna and my Mum would bake. I bought the domain name teaandcake.co.uk and, after travelling the world, and having tea and cake everywhere we went, I thought I would do a travel blog with all the photographs linking it all together.” The diversion from starting the blog came in the form of a felt tea cosy. “I went into a local café and there was a tea cosy and I really loved it. I wanted to make my own. I had never seen anything felt before, you think about the machine and fuzzy felt that you stick together.”

Janine enrolled on a wet felt workshop and produced her own felt tea cosy, elaborating the abstract design with delicate beading. Inspired by her creative success, she began selling her tea cosies, original felt art and art prints global wide through Etsy enabling her to switch from her web design role to become a full-time artist with the flexibility to fit around her two young daughters.

In 2019 Janine joined the International Felt Makers Association, and in the six years since becoming a working artist she was part of the Mercer Gallery Open Exhibition in 2019 and has a permanent presence with her original felt work in The Watermark Gallery, Harrogate. She also runs felting workshops.

“It’s what I want to do,” says Janine, whose ambition is to host a solo exhibition of her felt making art which is an integral part of her life.

“I love the process because it is really relaxing and it is the magic that water, soap and friction will combine these materials together – you don’t need anything else – it is really just magic.”

Janine is participating in the art and crafts event, Art in The Pen, taking place at Skipton Auction Mart on August 17 and 18.

Entangled runs at Leeds Industrial Museum from May 18 to 25

www.janinejacques.co.uk