As Ann told you the local guild, (OVWSG) is having our 75th anniversary this year. No, I have not been here the hold time! Although sometimes it seems like I may have been. Unfortunately, I have been run off my feet getting my hubbies and my feet to all the Doctors and rehab appointments. Today was a OT, SLP, drop off forms at the Family Doctor and then on to the Neurologist and her nurse. We are final home again and finished dinner.
The post I started before all this began is languishing, needing more fighting with my old 2010 publisher program, it didn’t realize it was going to be used for illustration not layout as originally intended. So a quick change of blog order and I am back on topic.
I too, have a square in the guild tapestry, it is #16. Ann gave me the bottom of the library, with buttresses and retaining walls showing through the trees. Ann said it was appropriate since I have been guild librarian for a long time. Ok, that make sense. Now it is time to analyze the photo.
Ann used a rounded pixelation modification to the original image. It is all a bit like looking at something without my glasses and I can’t get a sense of where the buttresses are and the shadows are obscuring the verticals…..mumble… mumble. Well two can pixeselate! After a bit of digging I got a different form of pixelation, using squares rather than circles to reconstruct the image. Ah, the buttresses are now visible and the phenistration makes sense and I can see the retaining wall placement more clearly!!! If I work from the square pixelation I can then soften it to something similar to the larger blurry blobs but maybe with a bit more recognition that it’s the library!
It is also often helpful to have a black and white version of an image to get a better idea of tonal value. So i printed off one in grey scale too.
If you look carefully, you will see that the felt ground I have selected is 100% wool in a mid-tone grey. This does not lend itself to the “tracing” or “light box method” of transferring an image. Have no fear, all those commercial art courses have given me sneaky devious alternative options! Let’s go to one of my go to favorites, the template method. Its not one I see used by most felters and it’s a good back up if you are working with felt you cant see through. It will require 2 identical images (so just photo copy a second version of your reference image). It can be helpful to push up the contrast a little to help you see edges and group shapes together. for this one since it was a complicated piece of architecture and lots of early fall foliage I went for more sections than I usually would.
Step 1. Take one of your two reference photos, cut it so any border is removed (so its your finished image size.) See image 2 for trimmed images.
Step 2. Trace around the outside of the image. I miss cropped the square pixcilated image and it’s a bit of the building is missing so I have had to keep it shifted to the right.
Step 3. With good fine paper scissors, start usually with the back ground and cut away a section. (usually it’s the sky but this one doesn’t seem to have sky.) Keep the carefully cut off piece and put it in a zip lock baggie. (it is sometimes helpful to refer to if you misplace your segment lines.)
Step 4. Make sure your image is sitting exactly as it should be in the outline you just drew. Use a fine tip permanent marker, (they do come in more colours than just black there some at the dollar store) to trace in the section you just cut out from your reference image.
- TIP: sometimes it is easier to work with a medium or heavy weight of cardstock or cover stock rather than light weight paper, if you are having trouble with this method try the heavier cardstock and see it that makes it easier for you.
- Tip: if you are using pre-felt, or the soft craft felt (usually not made with much or any wool), and not the wool commercial felt I am using, you may find making dots (stippling) rather than trying to make a line works better to indicate an area. For a complicated under drawing, a good quality ground (commercial wool felt with a smooth pressed surface) will be the easiest to work on.
Step 5. Cut out another section (again, usually working from the background towards the foreground will be most helpful, but use your judgement). Then add the cut out section to your zip lock baggie with the previous piece. Position your template (the reference picture with parts removed) so it fits exactly in the outline you made and repeat step 4. (Trace the section you just cut out.)
Keep going, carefully cutting out and tracing, until you have ether all the picture cut and transferred to the felt, or have enough of it marked out that you can add the rest of the detail as you felt.
I have gone to an extreme in the amount of detail when cutting out, but you can see how much detail you can get with this method.
The other thing I wanted to point out was about this good quality felt (commercial, probably hot pressed), is that you can add more information for yourself, by using various sorts of pens and markers. I tried an old green permanent marker to indicate some of the deepest but brightest greens. I used a red ink pen to note the deepest red foliage. The yellow was one of two yellow highlighters. I also gently shaded areas of deep shade or dark roof with the black I was using to outline.
7.1 -7.3 Using makers, pens and highlighters to add more detail into the section of the templated image I have outlined onto the felt.
I just have a bit more detail to add to the trees but I am almost ready to start adding wool. This is an easy way to transfer an image and you can get a lot of detail if you want to take the time.
Now that I have an image on the felt and ready to go, what else will I need to have, to make this as portable a project as the Moose bags were?
I have part of an old garage sale sign made of Coroplast (it is the fancy name for plastic cardboard!). I have added a bulldog clip and the reference photos to it. The felt has been placed on one of my 8×10 x 1.5” thick wool felting-pad. I held it in place with a couple sewing pins.
I have missed a step, as part of the analyzing the photo, I compared the colours in the image to the web site for one of the local fiber supplier of coreidale fiber (unfortunately its top, not roving, but it will still work). From the colours I selected I can blend the rest.
If you are not comfortable with pulling colours from your reference, you can use a window (a cut a small rectangle in a sheet of paper or card stock) this will isolate a small section of colour so it is easier to see what you are looking at. There are also sites on the internet that will pull three or four main colours from an image for you. Lastly, you could user the Colour Cards (I showed you the ones I got for my niece for x-mass 2023).
“Essential Color Card Deck” (much cheaper than the pantone set), you can use these cards to match colours in your reference photo. Then they will also make blending your fiber to match the selected colour card easier, since it is isolated from the reference image and adjacent colours.
I have added 6 to 8 inches of top for each of the above colours, separating them into a few colour groups and have added a dark charcoal and a white to help make tints and shades. I have also added the mini pet combs to the bag of fiber baggies. (I promise i will make tiny carder covers for them when i get time to work on the sewing machine. In the mean time they are in a heavy weight smaller freezer bag.)
The wool mat with project fit in a large freezer zip lock bag. The reference images on corroplast and a separate large freezer bag for the wool and mini carders fit with the felt mat bag in my moose bag. If I can find a comfortable chair in a waiting room, I can use the walker seat as a table to work on, as I have while we waited for appointments today.
Moose is still a very gregarious bag, causing many people to come talk to us (or more likely to moose). I will have to remember to bring guild business cards and the web address for the Felt and Fiber studio blog to hand out to all the people Moose keeps flirting/chatting with, who may be felters but just have not realized it yet!