Revisiting last years vacations

I really enjoyed the felt painting workshop. So much so, that I’ve nearly completed two more pieces.

My first was taken from a photo from our hike up the North Face of Ben Nevis early last October. It’s a bit strange that it’s already been almost a year since then, and this time last year we would have been in Shetland.

Putting this together took a few different sessions. I started by pulling together the colors I wanted to use. One color I’d like to call out – the red. At first glance, you might not see the red in the image, but it’s there in the shadows of the green grass, and is one of the tones of the heather along the hillsides. Nothing is “red” per se, but it’s one of the colors I needed to work in if I was going to capture the depth and the feel of the image. It’s also an art trick – if you want to put shadows on a color, the shadows will be it’s complement. Thus, red has green shadows, and green has red shadows.

Once I had my colors, I worked up a first layer from background (sky) up through the middle group and foreground. As you can see in the above image, it’s still a really rough sketch. I simplified just how many hills are in the middle-ground so I could focus on essence rather than insane amounts of detail.

It took me a couple more sessions sitting down with it to work up additional layers and details until I was happy.

My next piece is nearly, but not quite, there. You can see it’s still a lot fluffier looking, especially at the edges. This one is from a photo I took in Romania while we were hunting for a Christmas tree with my aunt.

Turns out trying to capture mist and mist-shrouded houses is a bit tricky. I think the overall result is pretty good, but not quite as well done as the North Face one. I do think I got a bit of the glow of the sky captured, if a bit more saturated in color than in the original image.

It is quite clear to me though that I need to get some more colors of fiber if I’m going to keep this up.