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Color Mixing with Drum Carder

Color Mixing with Drum Carder

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Experimenting with color mixing by drum carder was on my list of to do’s and I got around to that this past week. I created a sample with similar colors when color mixing by felting alone in this post.

First off, I had to get the drum carder out and find a space for it on my studio table. The chosen colors were blue green and red orange. I wanted to see how the drum carder mixing differentiated from the felted layers of the same colors. I used the same proportions of colors that I used in the prior sample, which was about 3 to 1 red orange to blue green.

Here is the batt that I created with those colors. The photo on the left is one run through on the drum carder and the photo on the right is two runs through the carder. I then tore the batt in half as I didn’t need that big of a felt sample. So I still have another sample I can make in these colors.

I wanted to try a different way to texture the bark so I used some cut up pieces of heavy interfacing (Pellon). It’s probably about a quarter of an inch thick. I peeled apart a layer of the batt, put the interfacing pieces down and covered with the rest of the batt. After felting, I should have split the batt into two equal pieces, that would have worked better than a thinner layer on the bottom.

The front is shown on the left and the back on the right after felting. As you can see, the interfacing came through the ends as I didn’t have enough wool covering the ends. And the back shows that I had too thin a layer under the interfacing pieces. But it was easier to see the interfacing to stitch around. The interfacing was not thick enough to feel through the wool and didn’t give a good texture. (Doesn’t the photo on the left remind you of a short rib?)

I then added some free motion machine stitching so the texture was more evident from the interfacing pieces. I also trimmed off the ends that were showing and did a little needle felting repair in those areas.

Here are the two pieces side by side. The one on the right does have silk nuno felted on the top too. Which do you think works better? The carded sample is more homogeneous in neutralized red orange but I do like the mottled appearance of the layered color mixing on the right. The carded sample definitely needs more value contrast than what it has now. How do you mix your colors of wool? We’d love to hear about over on the forum.

 

Nuno Felted Bark Sample

Nuno Felted Bark Sample

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Our fiber art group met last week and we were working on paper fabric lamination. I forgot to take any photos while the group was there but can show you my samples. I have been making bark samples for my Level 3 Art and Design class so I decided I would try using paper fabric lamination for a different type of bark sample.

This one is made with 5 mm silk that was dyed with natural dyes and then laminated to a photo of bark. I decided not to do the usual process of removing a portion of the paper but just left it after the first step.

On this sample, I used the same silk and a different bark photo. Once that was laminated by screening with a bark silk screen, I completed the paper fabric lamination by removing the paper that was not adhered to the silk. Then I decided I wanted to see what would happen if I used matte medium to glue the paper fabric lamination to a background piece of paper. I chose a painted black piece because it gave the most contrast. I like the texture and look of this. Do you think it resembles bark?

The next paper fabric lamination sample I decided to use in a nuno felted piece. I placed the silk (with laminated paper) on to a piece of commercial prefelt and added bits of prefelt on top in “bark” shapes. I also added other bark shapes from a felt scrap underneath the silk. You can see one of those shapes on the left side of the photo.

Or you can peak underneath to see one under the silk.

I then wet it down and felted it. I don’t do any rolling, just mainly rubbing to felt.

Here it is after getting it nearly felted. I didn’t full it much as it doesn’t need to be hard and I didn’t want a lot of shrinkage.

Here it is after it was dry. I’m not sure if you can tell but it does have layers and texture like bark would.

The next step is to add hand stitching. I left the prefelt white because I am going to add acrylic paint over the surface of this piece after I have stitched it. I want to experiment and see what the acrylic paint and mediums look like over felt. I hope that the stitching will give the painted surface more interesting texture. Hopefully, I will have the results ready for my next post.

If you’re interested in learning about nuno felting with paper fabric lamination, I will be teaching this course again in early 2018. If you’d like to take the class, just send me a note with the class name on our contact us page and I will add you to the email notification list for the upcoming class.

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