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Felting a Painting

Felting a Painting

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I’d promised a mate I’d do a painting for him. He liked a couple of pics that I showed him, but I wasn’t sure they’d work on canvas as the technique is better suited to paper. I thought about doing something different, but really didn’t want to, so started trying to think how I could get the technique could work. I wondered if I might be able to recreate the ‘look’ with a piece of felt, he likes funky fabrics and wall-hangings so it might be even better than a canvas. We’ve used artists and paintings in Studio Challenges and I’ve copied a painting before and liked how it turned out. So, I thought it was worth a try. These aren’t the exact pics I showed my friend, but I didn’t want to do a copy, I just wanted inspiration:

The idea I had in mind was from another painting I’d done, similar in technique, but more structured in columns and blocks. I can’t find the painting and it didn’t have the scribbley ink layer underneath, but these were fine for inspiration. They’re built up of layers, with the scribbley ink as background, then just a few colours used, but overlapped to create more colours, this is just yellow, pink and blue, but has orange, red and indigo from overlapping:

I started with blocks of colour, I chose them carefully and positioned them so they’d stay bright and not get dulled by overlapping:

I used some Nylon tops and silk threads to replicate the inky scribbles. I didn’t want to overdo it though. I put wisps of wool over them. To get the effect of overlapping colours and to soften the shapes a bit, I used mostly dyed Nylon Staple fibres. I’ve dyed heaps of this so have lots of shades. I used colours from adjacent wool patches and in places blended fibre colours together. I also used some trilobal nylon, silk throwsters waste, dyed viscose staple, and other dyed cellulose fibres for more interest and some shine

Giving it a good look over before felting I thought a few areas could do with a ‘lift’, so I added some fibres in contrasting colours too:

I like how it turned out, though this is ‘upside down’ compared to the layout pics:

The Nylon staple worked well to ‘blend’ the adjacent colours and the shinier fibres gave it more depth:

I really like this end:

And, I had to get some close-ups, of course! This is Trilobal Nylon, I used this sparingly, I didn’t want too much ‘sparkle’:

A silk thread under some blue nylon staple fibre:

And some Viscose staple fibre:

Hopefully, my mate will like it 🙂

3rd Quarter Challenge

3rd Quarter Challenge

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This quarter has flashed by for me between traveling and taking classes. When I originally thought of the dimension theme, I had something different in mind to accomplish.  But as timing would have it, the Kristy Kun’s Texture Techniques with Heavy Needled Wool fell right into the quarter.  A few weeks ago Terri Simon aka Meterrilee shared her work with us from the class in this blog.  https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2016/09/16/guest-artist-terri-simon-on-dimensional-felt/

It took me a little longer to finalize my projects, but I would say they definitely qualify for dimensional felt.

For the first project the objective was to learn to add vertical prefelt to a square background. There were three different heights of the prefelt and I had no specific plan.  I just played with it to try to learn the technique which is much different than anything I’ve done before in wool.  I made some mistakes, but learned a lot in the process.

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Here is a side view to show the height.  This piece probably could have been worked a little longer to smooth it out more and I may try again.  But I had to move on to my other projects.

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The second project involved joining pieces to each other and being able to use colored batts.

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The last project was the flower.  This one took the most time and attention. Each petal had to be worked separately a number of times at different stages.  It was a very mindful and intense process, but well worth the effort.

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For this project there were two sizes of prefelt and a number of different examples of flowers or the ability to create your own.  Since I was concentrating on learning the technique, I chose to follow an example.  But with all felt projects even though you may be following an example, the end result can be different.

I really enjoyed the class and learning such a different technique.  And of course, creating dimension in a unique way.  Thanks Kristy for a great class!

Have you finished your 3rd quarter challenge yet?  If not, there is still time.

2014 2nd Quarter Challenge

2014 2nd Quarter Challenge

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At the beginning of last month, Ann posted her 2nd Quarter Studio Challenge, the work of artist Stewart Stephenson. His work is very diverse, and I must admit I prefer his more abstract works, maybe because they are similar in style to my own oils and acrylics. I played it ‘safe’ with the first piece I made for this challenge, using one of his ‘sass’ flower paintings: Sassy Wildflowers:

sassy wildflowersI drew myself a little sketch, marked down which colours to use where, then laid out the wool. I did a similar thing for both pieces and the colours were quite a bit off! This is before felting:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd this is what it looked like after felting:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe other Stewart Stephenson pieces I quite like are his mixed media ‘line’ pieces. I’m not sure which mediums are used, some look to be just paint, some seem to be digital images or at least digitally altered. They all seem to be based on the idea of having a centre and working out from there. The one I mostly used for reference was ‘Line Up Now’.

lineup nowAgain, my colours were a bit off, and also his works don’t appear to be mirror images, but I liked the idea of that, so that’s how I did mine. This is a close up of one part before felting:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAMy girlfriend suggested I use some very dark blues and black on it, to give it more depth, so just before felting, I added those colours. This is what it looked like after felting.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI really like the way both pieces came out. I made them of a size big enough to make notebook covers, but I think they’ll stay as they are 🙂 We’ll be adding the entries to the Challenge Galleries, so if you’d like to be included just let us know. We also have a post on the forum where you can see other entries too.

First Quarter Challenge 2014 – Lyn’s Entry

First Quarter Challenge 2014 – Lyn’s Entry

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Our Guest Post today for the First Quarter Studio Challenge, is from Lyn.

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I’ve enjoyed this challenge and I’ve learnt a little about one of America’s most influential artists. Some of Jackson Pollock’s art is interesting, yet some pieces remind me of kitchen counter tops – for example, ‘Lavender Mist’:

lavender-mistI wanted to find a Jackson painting to inspire me so I hit ‘Google images’ and quickly found one I liked.
It was headed ‘Abstract art by Jackson Pollock, oil painting on canvas’.
Enthusiastically I chose my colour palette:

Jackson Pollock merino wool paletteAt this point, I would like to have shown you the painting that was my inspiration, but (blushing ever so slightly) I can’t.
I have since discovered that it’s really a ‘Pollock-style’ painting that’s mass produced in Asia.

So, moving swiftly on, here is my Pollock-style felt picture – finished size is 18″ x 15″.

felt in the style of Jackson PollockI made a base of two layers of white merino topped with one layer of rusty-red.  I started the fourth layer by making a border all around with the same red, then working inwards with ever decreasing ovals, I put down dusty orange,  gold, yellow then white in the middle.  The fifth layer was a repeat of the fourth.  On top I placed strips of blue, rusty-red and slate in a representation of broad brush strokes then drizzled some strands of silk tops along some of them.  Finally, I dotted on wool nepps to represent drips of paint.

After ten minutes of agitating the wool fibres, I folded the edges under because I wanted the finished piece to have quite straight edges, as a painting on a canvas would.  They were looking good and straight during the felting but they warped during the fulling because of the uneven layers.

Happy though I was with finished piece, I decided to cut it up with a rotary cutter and re-arrange the slices.  I stuck the slices to a board, took a photo, then added a border to make it look like a painting.

framed felt in the style of Jackson Pollock - mk iiNow, where did I put the phone number for the Tate Modern……

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