Here a bunny, there a bunny...

SPRING RAINS.  almost a daily thing now.  Certainly makes plants ands weeds grow fast, but I would really like some sunny weather again. I feel like Im living in Oregon - or England. 

Anyway, I just finished this felted rabbit in time to send it off as a gift for Easter.     

Then just for fun a few more toilet paper roll bunnies.  Some have added flowers made by

my neighbor/friend Sue.  Thanks Sue. 

I hope you are having a sunny day.  

Felted birds

I recently completed the first two shown here. 

I am finding it useful to do some detail work in embroidery. It feels really good to handle these pieces, which makes the process really pleasurable.  

The duckling is finally finished with a background added.  He's so soft.  I plumped him up a bit as I did with the bird in top picture.  

Needle felted flower

I could hardly wait to do something with that lovely purple wool roving.   I had no plan at all, but a simple flower is all I have been able to create in f
Wools, so that was first.  The beautiful greens I purchased awhile ago i planned to use for leaves, but on a  whim it became stripes in the background.

Needle felting update

My friend Ruth is working on a needle felted piece with  a cluster of grapes as the subject. She has worked on it for months as she is taking a more painterly approach as it progresses.  I purchased this wonderful variegated purple wool roving on ebay so she has more color variations.  And I want to do some purple florals.   Isn't it luscious?

Valentines.

I used felt in the valentines I gave to some friends this year.  I also used those black scratched hearts for  others.

The felted heart shown next is from my friend Ruth.  She is one of my needle felting students.  I love that she made this to surprise me.  

Needle Felted Works. Book

I finished the next book and placed order yesterday.    Here are a few of the photos I selected.

Needle felting - to teach or not to teach

I take my felting projects to the Monday morning painting class at the senior center, and work on it there.   People are so fascinated and are beginning to approach me to teach them.     I also take felting to the other senior center on Wednesday mornings, and to the gallery when it's my day to work.    I get so many questions and requests that I'm considering teaching.     Or perhaps a demo on a Sunday afternoon with question and answer period.    

My friend Jean is my only student.     She is the most fabulous watercolor artist and has a good following of students and fans.    She sits the gallery with me, and never brings her paints, it's just too much trouble.  So, since felting resembles watercolors in a way that the fibers are layered like watercolor paints, it seems that this would suit her well.   She is taking to it, and her use of color and design is going to shine out when she masters the actual puncing of the fibers.     She purchased her needles and tool at Hobby Lobby.   Its made in China, unlike my old one by the Clover brand from Japan.   I have yet to break a needle, and I work them really hard.     I just ordered a new set on Amazon.com at a really good price, much less than I paid in the yarn shop where I found this years ago.   

If Jean breaks more needles, then I would suggest she returns them all as defective merchandise (and they were not inexpensive) for a refund.     I hope the new ones I ordered will be of the same strength as these old ones.    

I spoke with my friend Sandy, from whom I have purchased her own hand dyed wools, and she would be willing to come to the gallery with her spinning wheel and demonstrate that the same day I'd demonstrate felting.     That way it would be a fiber day.    Lisa, who also felts, but  not landscapes or images, is also willing to demonstrate what she does with her felting.  She has done hats, and ornamental objects.     Much different than anything I have done.  

It would  make a nice mix.     Then we could sign people up for instruction is we choose to.       This would all happen after the first of the year, during the winter doldrums, when felting and sipping something hot is comforting and fun.   

This landscape is from a little sketch I did in pale pastel colors.    I meant to follow the sketch but the deeper wool colors carried me along in a different direction.     It's not done yet.  

needle felting - a cute little owl

     

This  piece is a little owl, I did just for fun.    It measures roughly 4 1/2 inches across.  All done with needle felting through a piece of craft felt.    I started with the little sketch I used earlier to carve a rubber stamp.       

Felted landscape - newest

This is one that I made based on a quick sketch.    But, as it evolved, it turned into something else entirely.  I can't even recognize it from the sketch.  Oh well.  It is what it is, and I like it fine.  

I've got a little more tweaking to do and will call it a wrap.  

I have had such a hard time finding the green wools that I need for these.  I may need to resort to dying my own.    

Mountain art journal used to inspire new felt piece

With mountains being a recurring theme for me lately, I started a new art journal.       I was playing with spray inks and made masks with torn paper or deli wrap.    I used them but could not throw them away.  

So, into the mountain journal they go.  And the gelli prints too.      And now I'm looking around things I've done in the past that would fit the theme and will add them in.      

One of the reasons many of us keep art journals is to find inspiration from things we m ight otherwise have tossed away.     Like these mountains.    I probably will add text later with quotes and poetry. 





this last pic has copies of two watercolored woodsy scenes I painted years ago.  I'm going to use them for inspiration for the next felted piece I do.
   

Felt piece finished.

It took quite a while to call this finished.   Perhaps because it needed more tweaking, or perhaps I just loved the process of the fine layering of colored wools and the act of punching it with the barbed needle.      It's ready to enter in  the small works show.       And I'm ready to move on to the next one.

GOT PURPLE?

I received my new order of dyed wool roving.       While sitting at the gallery yesterday with Jean, I worked on adding some of the new colors onto the felted piece.       I have much better greens to work with, certainly moe like the tree colors I know, kind of olive greens.      Then the purple had to be worked into the hilside for an extra punch of color.     Here's the way it looks this morning.    Maybe by evening it will change.  

My friend  Vivian and I were talking about the wook, and it occured to me that it's title might be........ "A Roving".   

The second photo is what it looks like on the back when I peel it off the dense foam.    I actually like it a lot.  Not all of the colors have come through yet, but more will as it progresses.     The amount of wool that comes through is so much thicket than with the old green foam pad I used to use.     

Colorful felted landscape a work in progress

I ordered a larger high density foam pad from Amazon and when it arrived I couldn't wait to try it.     Wow.  What a difference it makes.     My old foam pad had been punctured so many times, it was losing it's shape.   this is firm and takes far fewer strokes with the multineedle punch to grip the backing.   I use a piece of felt cut to the size I want my finished piece for a backing.       I had to cut the pad to a more manageable size to carry with me, but I have lots left over for larger works.  

This is the one I'm working on now.      When I peeled it off the foam, I was amazed how much more wool works it's way through the felt.    More than double the amount than the softer green foam.    Not sure if that's good or bad.   I did find it really difficult to remove it from the foam backing as it really stuck with the fibers worked into the dense foam.     

For laying out a piece, I just draped fibers across where I thought I wanted them and then tacked them down quickly with the multi needle tool (mine has five needles).     Right away I could feel the difference, in fact it was so fast and easy I thought it might not be as satisfying an activity because it was too fast.     Less meditative, if you know what I mean.    If you felt, you will know.    

Since I took this a couple days ago, I've made a lot of changes.   I also ordered some new colors from Ebay, so am waiting for new greens and salmon colors, even some purples.     Who knows what they may look like next time you see it.      It's definitely a work in progress.

This is one of the things I've been working on while the roofers are overhead.      It's Saturday today and they won't be around again until Monday.     It is so nice to have it quiet.      And peaceful.   Just like a little landscape.    

This will go in my series, Peaceful Places.

Feeling like felting

I need to carry supplies to the senior centers for art days, Monday mornings at Oak Park, and Wednesdays at Arnold Rue Center.      Some of the artists that paint in oils carry all kinds of stuff with them, at least a big cart and wet canvases.    Smelly wet stuff.      I am just to lazy to cart things, so I either take my sketch book, an art journal, or m ore recently I've  been carrying my little tote with my fibers, needles and foam.  That's all it requires.    I feel like felting.   

This piece I started quite a while ago, in fact it's the first felted landscape I tried.   I planned to enter it in the "itty bitty artworks" show in Nov.      But, I didn't know they would set the size at 3 x 3 max.   This measures 3 x 4 inches.     Just oversize.   It can go in the small works show, but I want to enter the seascape in that one.  Small works can be up to 8 x 10 or 6 x 12.    I'm well under the size limits.    They do not count the framing.   





Here is the first seascape I did.      I started with the clouds drifing off horizontally and it just didn't look good, so I picked it out fiber by fiber and changes them to radiate out at angles as in a photo I took years ago at the beach.   

The last photo is the one I'm working on presently.  It is sitting on the foam block I use to punch into with the long needles.    People are always popping in and out of the art room to see what we are doing.   No one has ever seen anyone felt before, so it's a treat to be able to show them and let them try it.     I should prepare a little handout to tell them where they can get supplies, because I think some of them would really enjoy this art activity. 

I just felt like it

I'm heading off to the gallery to drop off this piece of art.   I just finished it the day before.   It was a good hair day so I snapped a pic.   How vain can you get?    






Here is the little felt landscape I've been working on.   It is being shown in the gallery now in the membership show.  This was done by hand with needles.   It started much smaller and grew and grew.    It measures about  6 x 6 inches.     most of it was done with a single needle.  I work on top of a foam piece to keep the needle from sticking into ME!    These are really sharp needles, just ask any felter.       Part of the background was done with a 5 needle tool which blends things together well, but for detail and sculpting, a single needle is necessary.      It is mounted on a pice of commercial felt, and shown in a shadow box with glass front.     I really enjoyed the whole process.   I carried it around in a little case with supplies and tools, and worked on it at the gallery while taking my turn as sitter.      I could visit with friends at the same time.  It's very relaxing.    While I cannot wear wool on my arms and wrists, it presented no problems with my  hands.  I think I'll start another one soon.