Needle Felt a Painting

Intro: Needle Felt a Painting

Hi all, 
Here follows a step by step of what I do. I saw how needle felting and felting has exploded in popularity, but I wan't more detail than wet felting could supply and I am a 2dimensional artist, so I adapted some techniques. 

First you will need some..

Pre-felt (flat purchased pieces of felt)
Wool Tops/ Fibres
Needle felting needles and handle 
A marker and pencil.

STEP 1: Step 1

Lightly draw out your design.
For this piece I used a vintage illustration for my design.
When you are confident in your drawing, use a fine marker to make it easier to see. 
Avoid detail and shadows. It'll get difficult to cover otherwise.

Needle felting time
pluck a small tuft of fibre from your wool tops. Lay onto pre-felt
Using the barbed needle, secure the tuft into place using a repetitive poking action.
As you can see in the image below, start with the darker areas/ outlines.

STEP 2:

Coloring In

Limit you colour palette to tones, such as autumnal browns, yellows, greens.
Fill in large areas lightly. 
Stretch the wool tops/roving so it isn't too densely packed. 
Over felting will weaken the pre-felt and stretch it out off shape

Use darker shades of the color to achieve tonal range and depth.
For background I mix and layer colours and spread thinly leaving the color of the pre- felt show through

STEP 3:

Refine and Finish


Once all the piece has been colored in and some tones and highlights have been built up...

Stand back from you piece, hang it up on a wall and decide which areas need some contrast.
Using the darkest brown and the lightest yellows and creams for this piece, I rework areas to create stronger contrasts.

For more details on pieces like this, difficulties i had and dying wool tops please pop over to my blog

http://haveeweanywool.wordpress.com/

Comments

[genevammills]

i have been trying, for years, to figure out how to create a "painting with fibers" so i could reproduce some of the acrylic paintings that i have done! all methods that i have come across i have found to be tedious, non-productive and overly time consuming, with the end result not being anything at all what i was looking for! three dimensional and flat needle felting is it!!! i love this tutorial. thank you so much for making it free and sharing your incredible gift with the rest of us. i am off to create my first flat piece... i will post a photo once complete to show you what you what you have helped me create! thank you millions!!! i'm so excited!

[scoochmaroo]

Fun! Do you have any process shots you could share? I've just gotten way in to needle felting!

[Mollyflops]

check out the blog, I have links and basic steps on it..for specific detail like how did i do the leaf? well its a little like painting in that everyone "paints" differently, just outlines and darker areas first as the fibres will drag across lighter ones. less roving rather than more and use shading ... happy felting...if there is something specific you need/can't figure out..I'll do my best to post pics/advice.