Welcome back to part two of my felting adventures! This time I
wanted to try something new using some techniques from the book, but I felt like making another dog wouldn't be beneficial to my learning process so I decided
to create a sheep, despite it's absence from the book. One piece of advice I
used from my book, Little
Felted Animals, says that "The size and firmness of the finished
project depends on the amount of punching, so allow more wool felt than you may
need" (Nishida and Tomoko, 33). I took this to heart when felting the base of my sheep, using
a large chunk of wool to create a neat circle, which I then felted some black
wool over to make it the right color. The book said to start with a base of
black wool, but I only have white in bulk so I started there and layered over
it to create the same effect.
To the left is a photo of the base for my
creation, before the extra color was added. Clearly it’s not a perfect circle,
but that won’t be visible after the outer layer is added. The left side is the
base, and the right shows what the wool looks like before it is shaped.
After adding color, I felted about 18 or so small spheres, a few
white and a few gray. Shaping with my fingers and punching the wool in tightly
to create shape (Nishida and Tomoko, 29), I spent a significant amount of time shaping what felt
like countless of these tiny shapes, and by the time I had to do the same thing
for the legs I was ready to give up the monotonous task. However, I continued
on with the head and the eyes, giving the creation a cartoon-like look rather
than the realistic effect I was aiming for in my last project. Finally, I used
the book’s implanting techniques to attach all of the parts and my adorable
sheep was finished. The photo to the upper right is the wool pieces after I attached them, and below are some photos of the finished product!
Now that I've tried both, which do you guys prefer: Realistic or cutesy? Do you think I've improved from my last post?
Citation:
Nishida, Kyoko, and Tomoko Kodera. Adorable Felted Animals: 30 Easy & Incredibly Lifelike Needle Felted Pals. Tokyo: Tuttle, 2015. Print.
Hey Phoenix!
ReplyDeleteThat is really cool what you did there. I like all the techniques you used for this. Personally, I prefer the more realistic looking things, but only if they are of cute things because then they're cute and realistic! I liked your doggie you made last time. The little sheep is cute too, although I don't understand why it is different colors. Also, how is it going to eat anything? I don't see a mouth anywhere! I do like its big eyes. They have blue dots so they're cool. I can't tell if you've improved or not because of the different nature of this project compared to the last one. The different animal also makes it hard to tell, but great work phoebe.
-Kierra Long
Hey Kierra,
DeleteThanks for your feedback on my newest project, I appreciate your kind words! As you suggested,I do plan to go back to realism so I can try more techniques from my book. I definitely understand the difference in styles and how that can make it difficult to tell whether I've improved. Nonetheless, I am thankful you took the time to see my project and give an input on it.
Thanks for the Feedback,
Phoenix