Nuno felt is often associated with wearables such as scarves, vests, hats etc., but if you like to make wet-felted pictures, then do consider what nuno can add – fabric can make detailing in a picture so much easier and can add interest and texture.
In a nutshell, nuno felting is the combination of fine wool fibres (we usually use merino as it seems to work well) gently felted together with open-weave fabric. Patience is necessary when felting to allow time for the wool fibres to migrate through the open weave fabric. If you’ve never tried nuno felting before, it’s quite simple and there are many free tutorials on the internet.
Before you commit to using a fabric, it can save time and frustration by making a sample so that you can see if the fabric is suitable. Shown below is a sample layout, pre-felting, and underneath shows how the fabrics look post- felting.
In the pineapple picture below you can see how fabrics, cut into rough squares, were applied to a background of pink, mauve and yellow merino wool fibres.
The colourful effect would have been difficult to achieve with wool fibres alone especially where the thin fabrics overlap and show through.
Shown below is the layout, then underneath is the felted picture.
The small section shown below is part of a large cityscape (currently unframed and pinned to a wall as the blue thumb-tack shows 😊). All the buildings were formed from open-weave fabric. For added interest a little paint was applied to the fabric in places.
In the next example, strings of bunting were needed to fly in the sky on the background of a wet-felted picture.
The shapes could have been cut from pre-felt, but using fabric was quicker and the effect of the multi-coloured fabric worked well.
Bunting shapes were cut from very loose-weave fabric then placed on top of merino wool fibres that had already been wetted and soaped down – in this case it was easier to accurately place the fabric on a wet rather than on a dry layout.
The wool fibres and fabric were very slowly felted together until they formed one piece.
This apple has ‘painterly marks’ formed by scraps of open-weave fabric.
The jug in the picture of flowers below, was made with open-weave fabric for pattern, solidness / weight and texture.
This is a small section of a woodland picture. Open-weave fabric was used for tree trunks as the fabric adds texture and interest and the white adds light for dappled sunlight.
As well as using bits of fabric, a picture can be constructed using all nuno felt. The final two examples show two different methods.
Full details of how ‘the pigeon and rubber duck in a birdbath’ picture was constructed are in this blog post:
https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2022/05/30/second-quarter-challenge-the-bird-bath/
Full details of how the ‘early bird’ picture was constructed are in this blog post:
https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2018/04/17/guest-blog-post-the-bird-and-his-breakfast/
We hope that this post will show how easy and how very effective the application of nuno felt can be in wet-felted art work!