needle felting and collage class

This past Saturday, I took an all-day class at one of my favorite stores in Berkeley: Castle in the Air...

The class was on combining needle felting with mixed-media collage, and it was a wonderful way to spend the day!  The teacher was helpful, sweet and fun, the materials were abundant, and the space was inspiring.

Here's my finished piece:

We started by painting on vellum with fluid acrylics (the bird), and needle felting the background wool.  I started with wispy blue and white wool for the sky, added a few spirals, and then decided my bird needed a nest.

Once the needle felting was done, I sewed the bird onto the felt, and the front piece onto the back, and then started embellishing with Angelina fiber crown, beads, a twig, etc.

I never seem to be able to resist including text in my artwork, and I was so happy when I found these words in a vintage vocabulary book...perfect!  A fancy wire hanger and a dangly bead completed my work.

I thought maybe I'd do more to it when I got home, but realized I liked it just as it is.  Too much more might have been overkill.

So, yesterday I started some smaller pieces to continue playing with techniques and ideas from the class.  I just love to have the opportunity to spend quality time creating with other artists, and also the chance to learn new things, be inspired by new (and old) materials, and just Play!  I'm hoping and intending to take more classes like this...it's definitely great Self-Care!

Comments

[celeste]

love it.
Am so going to try that...when I get a chance :)
I still have so many class samples to do and have so many pieces I need to make for my show in October.