I decided for the 1st Quarter Challenge that I wanted to do another nuno felted landscape. I still have a bunch of hand dyed silk that works great for these. In the spirit of using stuff up, I used a couple of silk pieces over white pre felt to create the backgrounds. I have only finished one of the landscapes but you will see both in the first few photos.
The top left photo shows the silk before felting. I didn’t really have a preconceived notion of what the landscape would be when I started. I thought I would figure it out as it went along. I laid out both pieces of silk over the white pre felt and then wet down and felted them by mainly rubbing. I did a little bit of fulling but left them fairly soft. While I was working, I saw distant mountains and evergreen trees in the pink/orange piece. The bottom right shows that piece after felting. I did decide to pull the edges of the silk around to the back and hand stitch them down to give a cleaner edge.
Next, I decided I wanted to give the feeling of more depth so I decided to add some sheer fabric into the mountain area. I used Bo Nash 007 Fusing Agent. It is powdered fusible. You sprinkle it on and then put whatever you are fusing on top and then iron it. The picture on the left is trying out different layers of sheer fabric and the one on the right is after fusing. Click on the photos to see more detail.
Then I began machine stitching. I didn’t want to put too much detail in the distance so it was pretty simple stitching. The middle photo shows the first thread I used in the middle distance and I thought it was too dark. It’s hard to tell the difference but I picked out the darker thread and took it down a shade or two on the right. It definitely made a difference to me but it’s hard to tell in the photos.
Next up was the trees. I followed where the blue dye was in the fabric and created the further set of trees with a dark blue green thread. It is much bluer thread than the foreground trees. Then I add in the foreground trees with a couple of different shades of green thread. They have a bit more detail than the further distance trees. Hopefully, that gives a sense of depth in the landscape.
I haven’t decided on a title for this piece. Any suggestions? Have you tried creating a landscape for our 1st Quarter Challenge? If so, you can share with us over on the forum here.