No one will be surprised at my choice of subjects, a panda.

I had some maori batts in a  gray color so it seemed an easy choice as a base.

I’ve been trying to add more dimension into my work as I mentioned in last week’s blog post.  So, this was one of my goals with this project.

I layed out the batt then made the head of the panda in prefelt, then added the shapes for the ears, and eyes.  Since the nose would be the center of the picture, I used a needle felted nose shape in a heavier fiber then covered it with another nose shaped prefelt and needle felted it onto the batt. I don’t know why it looks pink.

I continued to build up the shape, added gems for eyes and covered them with another layer of prefelt and more fiber. I wanted to give the fur a fuzzy effect so I carefully cut and put fibers along the edges and a little shading around the eye.  For the body, I blended some gray into the black for contrast. Since the arm blended in with the body I just used a shaded area to give it a little dimension. And of course, the panda is eating her bamboo.  Her nose is actually bamboo fiber. Here is a side view.

After securing everything with more needle felting, I wet felted it.  The maori didn’t shrink much which was fine  because I intended to wrap it around a canvas frame.

A close up.

Well I changed my mind and hung it without wrapping it on a frame.

I may put it on a darker background to make it stand out from the gray wall.  What do you think?

Have you done the challenge yet?

I want to let you all know I will be taking a leave of absence.  I’m having surgery November 3 and don’t know how long it will be before I can resume felting.  In the mean time, several forum friends have offered to help fill in my blog spots.  If you have something you’d like to blog about to help out, please contact Ruth, Zed or Ann.  I hope to see you all back here soon!  Thanks for your support!