HOT SOAPY WATER & AGITATION ARE KEY

HANDMADE FELT CONSTRUCTIONS

BEGINNING 3-D ART

assorted wool rovings, hot soapy water & embellishments

Feltmaking with my beginners takes many forms.

This year I had them build a 3-dimensional piece with their handmade felt pieces.

Subject matter was up to them which means they had to design their own patterns.

Critical thinking skills,

you bet!

Here are a few of my felters turning the roving into felt with hot soapy water.

It makes a huge mess so we do it outside the classroom door.

When teaching a new technique I almost always demo on my own piece.

This year I gave each student a neutral background piece of wool.

They were able to choose from white, grey, brown or black.

In mine above you can see bits of the grey I choose.

Then I pull out lots of hand dyed wool for color on top the foundation piece.

This year I required the kids to find at least 2 different items to embed before felting. 

I choose long strings of dyed silk threads as well as pre-felted scraps.

You can see both below in the close-up.

In this yummy red-orange batt above by junior Antoniette Jabat

you can see that she's added bits of lace and yarns.

This batt and the mitt below were created by sophomore Amy Wang.

I wish my photo had turned out better 

because the colors she chose to work with drew me across the room to get a closer look.

She gave the mitt as a gift to senior Cindy Ryoo.

Next we have sophomore Shreya Sheth's batt and her wrist cuffs below.

I love that she thought to add a bit of plaid material on the edges,

a very pleasant combination with her other embellishments.

Here is the lovely work of senior Anna Lee.

Her batt and her clutch below.

Anna combines something soft with something more dense, 

the brown suede.

A really nice contrast/combo.

Front and Back

I don't have the batt pix for these two clutches,

but juniors Hazel Cruz and Joann Chung both used similar colors 

but look at how different the pieces turned out.

I love that!!!

Hazel used a sewing machine to attach two pieces of tye-dye fabric 

she had saved from earlier in the year.

And last,

but not least,

we have 8th grader Derek Ye.

I believe this is his first time on the blog.

Congrats Derek!

He made the largest piece of felt in the class,

thus having enough to make this gorgeous fold-over pillow.

Way to go young man,

so proud of you.  :)