I’m still working on my stream abstract in felt, but I’m getting closer to finished, and I made some more progress on it today. Initially this was hampered by two fluff balls:
I’d laid it out on the floor before starting so that I could take a photograph of how it looked after doing a wet-felting of it a couple weeks ago (the last time I worked on it). This immediately attracted our kitties, who felt duty-bound to examine anything new on the floor. Sylvia was mostly looking, but Pippin was ready to start rolling around on it with enthusiasm before I removed him. Finally I was able to take my photo:
I think the wet felting was very helpful in marrying together the various layers of needle felt I’d put down. It also contracted (as wet felting does) the fibers, separating out and highlighting some of the color and shapes I’d put down. Looking at it after a couple weeks away though, I realized I’m at the final steps. I’m really pretty much done with the wool rovings and it was time to move onto the mohair top and mohair locks I’d put aside for the final layers. First came the mohair top, spread in thin layers across the whole piece. I matched colors fairly closely, but my mohair top isn’t in the same complex range as the wool rovings. This wasn’t bad – I picked the closest color and kept the layers thin, so it functioned almost like a glaze on an oil painting:
You can see how the colors blend more now, and the rough edges to the various felted sections are smoother. Finally I started in on the locks today. I’m definitely not done yet, but it’s helping to fill in and add complexity to some of the areas I’d left a bit emptier, like the upper right corner and central yellow/white area:
I really like where it’s going with the locks, but I can also see places where I’ll need to go back and bring some order and cohesion back to the colors and shapes of the piece. For example – the lower center/right edge has become too light and is fighting with the center of the piece for attention. I don’t have any dark purple mohair locks, so I’m going to go back and fill in some of the edges which have become too light with some of the purple wool blended with plum colored mohair top. I think I’ll also use some thin lines of darker wool to help add depth to some of the locks as well.