Can you hear the waves crashing?

When my sister was here on vacation, we did a paint-along on Youtube together, but we painted with fibre.  This was our aim, a beach with rolling waves washing up onto the shore.  Lovely!  It's a JOONY Art that you can watch here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5exfXe300A4

 

I had gathered the fibres together in advance and she brought along some that she thought would also be useful, especially textured fibres for the clouds and white caps.

It was a lot of fun, and we got pretty far along in our one session.

Afterwards, we both finished our pieces on our own and it's amazing how different they are!  Each is unique and beautiful!

We'll have to do this again sometime soon!  It was a good learning experience and really quite fun.

Friends at the End of the Day

I love needle felting beaches for dogs to run on, even if the dogs are only in my mind's eye.  It was time to make another beach...

I was inspired by two images, one of a pink sunset on a beach and one of two dogs sitting on a cliff.  I thought to combine the two and place the sweet dogs on the lovely beach... 

The pinks in the sky are a blend of 3 colors.

First I completed the beach, here it is:

I cut out the dogs from the picture I liked in a few different sizes and picked the one that fitted the best:

Then I cut the dogs out of prefelt (from Fibrecraft, lovely stuff to work with) and tacked them in place.  

I felt that the black dog was too harsh and looked like a silhouette so I was inspired by my sweet Russel to give him some white markings.  This also made his face easier to see.  Finally, I used a black bead to add a little glint to his eye.  Charming!  

The shadows made it look more finished, but they were a little short so I lengthened them...

These two have enjoyed the perfect day at the beach and are watching the last of the sunset, good friends and good times.  I like their story.  

Lost and Found

If you've been a reader of my blog, you know I love Hallowe'en.  Sooner or later, I was obviously going to felt a skull, right?  Of course!

I was inspired by this image shared on "All Things Halloween" on Facebook.  Sadly no credit was given for the image, so if you know who the artist is please let me know.  

My sister had given me some lovely, dyed pieces of felt that looked beautiful on their own so I wanted to use them in a way that would show them off.  This was the perfect project!

The dyed felt pieces are from Etsy seller Steph's Crafty Bits.  I cut the green and brown pieces to form the background and needle felted them to a plain piece of felt for stability.

  Isn't the green lovely, it's a forest without having to add anything extra!

I printed a second copy of the image to cut out the skull as a template...

From natural white prefelt purchased from Saira at Fibrecraft, I cut out the skull shape...

 and gently pulled away the eyes, etc..., as I needle felted it to the background.

A book on painting advised to always do the darkest parts first, so I did the darkest areas in black.

Using a Blue Faced Leicester fibre in shades of grey from The Spinning Spider, I filled in the dark spaces...

This took some time and trial and error, but it was amazing how the skull became more and more real!  I used a little very pale yellow to highlight parts of the bone that got a little more light.  Shadowing around the skull also helped.

Plus a little green on the teeth and chin and it was done!  

Then the foreground:  I liked the contrast of the little pink flowers so I added them in two shades with a few different colors of green. 

Framing forced me to cut away quite a bit from the sides but I had a lovely 8 x 10 frame (no glass) that I wanted to use.

And it was done!

Wow, what a thrill!  What a hush!  This was at a level I didn't think I was quite ready for so I'm very pleased with the result.  What a confidence booster!

It all began with making a swan couple from the book Needle Felting Winter by Rachel Austin.  Now that I had these swans, where should I keep them?  In a pond of course, but I wanted one that would hang on the wall.

I made a glorious mess pulling out all my gorgeous fibre to pick out the best colors. (Ohhh, fibre!)  I had a picture from a children's book for inspiration and I wanted their home to be a hazy and hot Summer day.

First:  the logistics.  I found a good, deep wood frame with no glass.  How would they be able to sit in their pond in a frame?  There would have to be 3D and 2D parts merged together.  So first to make the ledge the swans would be secured to:

I cut foam to fit into the frame and sewed the layers together.  Then I started felting! 

This 3D part is the water under the swans, going down to the sediment at the pond's bottom. 

Next the 2D part was mapped out, the hazy sky, light blue pond and still lush green field around it.

It came together really nicely!  

I added the hint of a fish behind the weeds and a paper frog and dragonfly.  And thanks to my sister for reminding me that there needed to be shadows under the swans!

And then it was time to frame the piece... this was tricky.  I had to stitch the 2D part to cardboard that I cut to fit the frame so that the fibre wouldn't buckle...  

...then glued a clean piece of cardboard over that to make a nice clean back.  

And it was finally finished!  

It was June 20 so the piece is named Solstice Swans,

enjoying each other's company in their own little paradise. 

Something wicked...

Honestly, I had no idea what he was going to look like, I just wanted to make a friend for Mort.  So I made skinny fingers, like Mort's, in green, and a skeleton the same size as his.  

I then decided he would have horns, so I added extra toes so he'd balance well with the weight of the horns, which are dyed shell slivers from a butchered necklace (from the days when I made dragons).

The horns were wired into place and then I built his form.

It was a wild ride and at one point I thought I'd give up and put him away for a bit... but I kept going and his gangly arms became more ape-like, his hands took shape and his short legs more muscular.

In the end, I had an ape-like beast that looked better on all fours than standing upright... kinda scary, actually, I bet he could move really fast and climb well!  

So for a face... what does he look like?  I thought a wider face might soften his look, and also  bigger ears.

Of course I wanted the ears to be poseable, so I used a very thin green 28 gauge wire and gentled felted two sweet ears.

They turned out to be just the thing he needed on his wide face, a bit like a koala?  Hmm.

He got the same eyes as Mort, sunk deep into eye sockets, and the same kind of mouth.  

And here he is!  Mort loves him, they are best buddies!

He needs a name, though... any suggestions?

He was made with Corriedale "Fern" from Long Grass Studio and 100% Merino wool "Hojas" from Malabrigo Yarn. 

Sabotage

 This posting on Facebook really struck me:  

It's sabotage on a scale that's hard to imagine:  we've made it harder to just be happy, to just do something because of the pleasure it brings.  

So how do you dance "like no one is watching"?  More importantly, why can't you dance and not care that anyone is watching because it's not up for critique or judgement?  You're just doing it for fun, for how good it makes you feel?

Same with creating anything... How to create because it's enjoyable without worrying about the end "product"?

So, I present to you this beach with grassy dunes.  It was fun to make.  I don't want you to tell me the waves aren't perfect, or the clouds need work.  Tell me you hear the sound of the waves and feel the sun on your face and that's all I want from sharing this piece.  

Moonlit Path

I went to a wet felting workshop on February 29 (Leap Day) at the West Grey Public Library and everyone in the group came away with a lovely piece of pre-felt.  It was a really good experience taking the loose fiber and turning it into a quite stable piece of felt.  Time was tight so it's amazing how strong the pre-felt is considering so many steps were abbreviated or skipped.  Our fearless leader Kimm was aware of the time constraint and ushered us along so we'd have something useable to take home.  Bravo!

This is my finished piece, with the two colors of fiber I used.  It's three layers (2 of the darker blue).  I hope to use it as a backing for a 2D picture.

Here's Kimm's.   As per usual, the instructor was too busy guiding the group and her own piece got neglected.  Kimm was going to toss it but I hate seeing fiber go to waste and was drawn to the colors so she gave it to me to salvage.

As you know, abstract is not my thing.  Also, I would never have chosen this color combination (for example, see my pre-felt:  practical and, you can say it, ordinary).  So here I was with this organic mis-shapen thing that was calling out to be "found".  I took on the challenge, deciding not to alter it too much.

What did I see?  I saw a tunnel leading to an open space, and on the right the shape of a woman or a tree-woman.  (Turned sideways, Mom saw a butterfly).

After washing and drying it, I felted it to a piece of sparkly, black felt.  Then, using the little loose piece, I added a head to the woman shape and marked out a path.  I added some dark green around the outer edges and yellow and white to the faery glade that the path leads to.  I added moonlight to the path.

And finally some locks to really push for a forest look.

Here it is without the flash, better light for a moonlit image.

I really enjoyed this challenge, thanks Kimm!  I wish I had more salvage to work with as it really made me think outside my usual creations.

And thanks to the Library for hosting this workshop!  Check out your local library to see what they're up to!