If there’s one thing I love watching it’s how something that seems mysterious to me gets made! I figure you might enjoy seeing that too. So today I’ll post a series of images that show how an idea gets from the inside of my busy noggin’ out into the world as a work of art!
Below is the sketch I made of a felted wall piece I want to complete today or tomorrow.
I begin with a wet felted base. To make this I cut and dyed a length of 100% cheesecloth, and let it dry.
Then I laid that out on a large piece of bubble wrap. On top I started layering fine hand dyed wool and alpaca fibers.
When I had what looked like a good design to me, I wet the whole thing down with carefully sprayed soapy water and rolled up and rolled for hundreds of times.
This started the felting process.
I rinsed it when it appeared to have felted fairly well together and let it dry flat.
Once completely dry I am coming back in and beginning the process of needle felting on the finished design. I will build up layers of color and fibers and push my specialized needles through the whole thing onto a soft foam backing time after time after time until the fibers begin to ‘stick’ to one another.
That’s about where I am now with the pix.
Then I assemble my finishing ‘ingredients…
I begin to build up my design layers using needles with tiny tiny barbs on them. These help ‘weave’ the fibers together – thus the felting continues!
My studio help holds space for the creative process to unfold…
Layers upon layers of colorful goodness are needle felted up!
Part 2 here!
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