Sheepish!

Rana's sculpt auditioning the types of straight-off-the-sheep/goat wool that will become the finished puppet's hair! The dark wool on top is my order of Drenthe Heath washed fleece, the bottom is the Gotland. The African photo with mud coated braids is a goat horn idea I'm considering for part of Rana's hair style.
"How much grey would you like in Rana's hair?" The Slovakian living in Scotland "Shepherdess" asked. It was like having an entire flock of Highland sheep standing by to grow Halfland's main character's hair to order!
A very cool thing happened recently to Halfland. I follow the blog of a super nice and impressively talented experimental fiber artist, named Monika Lamackova, where she displays step-by-steps for some of her creations/materials/process, etc. (Some deliciousness of which she often sells on her Soft Fibre Etsy.)

One day she posted some Gotland sheep fibre for sale that had such wonderful natural curls and mixture of white with dark that I lusted for it to use as the goat woman Rana's hair. And I could afford it I recall it was like $6. When I explained in an email its purpose here she asked me what my wish was for the mix of shade! I got the feeling I could have requested any color of hair and pictured a flock of animals with a wide range of hues standing on a hill waiting for Monika to come along with a set of sharp shears to clip off a variety of shades to put in my package!

How exotic to receive these packages from generous Monika from such a faraway beautiful land. Over the months I've also bought a few ounces of Wensleydale washed fleece and Scottis Blackface (white) and Hebredean (black) wool for other characters as well as a few actual Woad Seeds because my natural dye loving soul needed them. (She has always included a wee fibre giftie in the pack as well to my absolute delight.)

Can you believe the people we all get to meet/connect with because of the Web?! I can't really get over it.

Comments

  1. Great post! I laughed hard at Wensleydale.. it's the first time I've ever detected a Halfland/Wallace & Gromit link!

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  2. HA! Right!?

    There's the Wensleydale sheep hair and now... Hitchcock in common with the dear lad's film stories!

    I've been watching every Hitchcock movie for 1/2L direction education and happened to watch A matter of Loaf and Death and was shocked at how utterly Hitchcockian the direction was!!! You can't believe how much of it was Hitch style! I swear it was at least 80% that style and used all the Hitchcock elements, every single one! Suspense building, innocent man accused and on the run, the shadow work, the desaturated urban color, the silent action, the subjective camera, the sharp edit violence, the murderer reveal. It was like a film class in reverse. Brilliant work by Mr. Park!!

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  3. OH! I just realized, the Hitchcock trains/model trains were in it and the big crescendo chase! HA! Nick didn't miss a trick!

    OH! And the guilty criminal reclining in the room for rent on the bed with his hands behind his neck! OMG!

    I bet there's even more Hitch allusions in it. Heh. The food, the murders, the Englishness, etc.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwQGXKOx_Yo

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  4. Anonymous1:35 AM

    :) thank you, Shelley. It's less romantic than you would think though, one fleece in my shed varies in the color as much as fleeces of a few sheep on the hill...

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