When we were last chatting about the workshop we had got the students to the point where the image had been transferred to the felt and they were beginning to work on it.
As with other painting mediums, I had them work from the background towards the foreground. This is common in pastel, and often seen in Oil or Watercolour painting. You can lay-in the required colour by hand blending your fibre then checking it against your reference photo. The students discovered that very little fibre could affect a significant colour change in the resulting blended fibre.
7-10) laying in the background then working forward.
One student using her own picture decided that the figure in the foreground was unnecessary for her landscape and after much debating removed him.
11-12) Re-editing image and checking with phone
Kim’s lighthouse image was mostly blues and a bit more challenging. It was a photo taken at dusk, so the colours become more subdued.
13-17) the progression of the light house
One student chose the round hay bales picture I had also done.
18-22) Winter hay bales progress as more detail is added
Another chose the sheep in a snowstorm shot. It was vary painterly! The sheep are suggestions hidden behind the grasses amongst the snow.
23-25) sheep in snow behind branches
The alpaca picture was coming along nicely. When I checked again it had suddenly gone from 5×7 to the full size of the frame without the mat! (That is twice the felting space of the other pictures.) I like the tree details she was developing.
26-27 Alpaca in progress and finished
The students did very well with their pictures and even had time for a relaxing lunch break! It was fun to see them putting the frames on their pieces, which always makes it more of an artistic statement rather than just bits of fluffs of wool.
28-34) the students framing their finished paintings!
One student was having so much fun she started her second picture on the remaining half of the wool felt.
35) One student was starting another picture at the end of the workshop
This was a fun workshop to teach and the students seem to have had fun too. I still have 3 workshops full of 3D felted sheep coming up this spring. They will be scheduled when we have a classroom available and I am back to fully healthy again. (ok March has got to be an improvement on January and February Right?) I hope you avoid the flu, both the imported and domestic varieties and instead have lots of fun felting!