Felt Picture

I had an idea over the week to do a piece of felt for my sister to say thanks for helping me at MakeFest. (Sorry I never got around to posting about it here, I was just so exhausted all week, but you can read about it here). I saw a photo she took on The Way of The Roses cycle route, and thought that would make a great piece.

I made a simplified version on Photoshop as a guide:

I don't have a computer downstairs (or working printer) so I didn't have a photo to work from, but I did draw a guide :)

I marked out the bands on a template and did the first layer, I'm afraid some of the photos aren't the best, it was dark and I had to use flash at times:

I then started on the second layer:

I thought it was looking alright until I got the the bright yellow patch near the bottom, it's a field of bright yellow rapeseed flowers, and I really wanted to capture the almost bubbly look it had. I blended Nylon and silk throwsters and bamboo, and it looked great, but made the rest look really flat:

So, then I had to go over all the areas with more texture. I blended shades, mixed in fibres, fluffed it all up and filled in the rows:

My favourite part is the bottom, the hedge has lots of colour to it, mostly greens, but the new growth has shades of red. I used lots of different shades of nylon staple fibre for this.

I added the details on next, hedges, trees, telegraph poles:

For the trees I used black viscose top, I pulled lengths off, fanned out the top, then gave it a twist to make the trunk and branches. Then I added fluffy wisps of blended wool.

Wet down:

Felted and still wet:

A few bits of yarn I used for tracks didn't work, so I removed them. Here it is dry, it's completely the wrong shades, the original photo is more 'acidic', but I liked how it turned out :

The back looks good too: