Hi and welcome to Lincolnshire Fenn Crafts needle
felting tutorials. Today we are going to learn to paint with wool and i have this gorgeous picture
in front of me which is really simple to make, great project for any ability even
if you've never needle felted before all you need is a nice selection of wool in your
choice of colours. If you are a member of the felt club then you may already have this wool bundle
so you'll be working along with me from that but you don't need that just a nice selection
of wools i've got mostly carded wools here and a few wool tops as well but any scraps of wool
will do. Plus, you don't need you don't need much of each, and although it looks like there's a lot
here you're using very little wool to be honest. so I'm just quickly showing you here i've got this
hung on a piece of driftwood and then this one is actually framed. What i've done with that
is i've actually got this coming out of the frame and it gives it such a great 3d effect
now i've called this north sea coast because i spent a lot of time on the north sea coast and
my dad was from that area so it's not sort of golden beaches and tropical sands it's more
of a seascape with attitude really which basically the North Sea has. So that's how i've
kind of worked this is there's quite a lot sort of going on i've got lots of lovely fibres here
and some bead embellishments so we'll get going. The first thing you need is a base
to felt on and that can be either a rice hessian mat with a topper - you do need a
topper if you are going to use your rice hessian mat because it just protects it and it will
last so so much longer. I'm using one of my eco toppers and I will pop the link for them down
below but any piece of wool felt that you have is is fine as long as it's got an element of wool in
it. Acrylic felt would also be OK to use. You can also use a firm piece of foam which is perfect to
work on. This picture can be made with just one needle. I am using a standard 38 gauge so you
know that's quite a nice strong needle which is what you want as you don't want anything too
bendy or too fine as it will take longer to needle felt. You can also tape a couple of
needles together or, if you have multi tools you can use those. My favourite is the
the punch tool which has seven needles and is super fast and really
speeds up the process. So we'll start on the hessian mat I'll show you
the different tools I'm using but really all you need is one needle or two if you want to speed
it up and you don't need a multi-tool. Start by 'painting' your wool onto the base we have
here which is a nice piece of Shetland pre-felt but again any pre-felt will
do or any flat felt will do. I like this because it's it's quite stretchy
and it moves and it's not too thick as well so everything just sort of settles on it really
really nicely. So you can see here this is the back of the of the painting, and that's the front
so you can see where it's all all come through. I love using Shetland pre-felt because it's
100 wool and perfect for pictures. You can also needle felt onto it and then wet
felt it or the opposite way around; you can wet felt onto it and then
add needle felted embellishments, so it's really really versatile. You can
see I have a nice selection of wool here and I'll just grab a pen. You don't
need any drawing skills at all to create this. I'm just going to move that out the
way and again, all I'm going to do is section my pre-felt into into thirds and I think we'll we'll
bring the first third down towards the corner then a straight line for the next two thirds
so you have sand at the base, sea in the middle and sky at the top. That's all you need to
do you don't need to draw anything which is why this is such an easy project. What I'm
going to do I'm going to start laying the base and I'm just going to work my way up so I'm
going to start with the sand, and as you can see on here we've got some different colours
going on and some different textures. Just pop that there then maybe you can
see as I'm working how it's being created and I am starting with some wool top which is not your tropical white sandy beach so
we're going we're going darker, but if you if you want to go really light then then feel free
use your own artistic interpretation because I'm going to be laying some lighter fibres on
top. As this is the base I'm just going to lay some thin fibers down in different
directions and, what you can also do is fluff thewool in your hands just to get
all the fibers going in different directions. Now lay your fibres down right
up to the edge of your pre-felt. Okay so if you've got just single needle that's
fine then you just start and we're not going to over felt this as we want a lot of texture
in this so that you get a sense of movement. The lines you have drawn are just guide lines so
don't worry about keeping them visible. We've got some gaps there but that's okay. so
that's using a single needle and I've got two here which speeds up the process a little bit for
you. To speed up the tutorial for you I'm going to go in with the the punch needle Make
sure that periodically you pull your work away from the base to stop it sticking. You can see
where it's starting to come through underneath. Do you see how quickly that is actually starting to felt, and we'll just pull
that away from the base as we have more fibres coming through. Also if you've have a multi needle
tool they are also very very good. I might use this just because it's a bit quieter as you might
start to get a little bit irritated by the noise. Pull those overhanging edges over to the underside and that gives it that nice neat edge. Do watch your fingers when you're doing this Don't straighten the edges too much as you
want to give it a nice painterly finish I've got some gaps there but that's okay
because we are going to cover those up and I haven't come right up to that line but that's
okay as well. I can can move that up if I need to but there's going to be a lot of overlap
happening as we move up so don't worry about that and you don't need a mat as big as your your
piece of work you just move it around. Not many people will have a big piece of foam but if you do
have a big piece of foam then that's that's great. So, don't worry about these loose
bits at the moment as we'll come back and tidy all those up later
just leave them there for now. This style is painting with wool in in
in it's sort of simplest form really which is kind of just how I like it. See how
you can just use your your needle just to pull those fibres up? Peel that away gently see how
that's coming through the back now. It's looking quite good that's the base started pop that there again see so as you can see this
is we're aiming for something similar to this. I think it looks nothing like
sand at the moment but it will. I'm now going to start layering so I've got
this much lighter almost sandy sort of mottled carded wool here. Carded wool just means
it's it's it's processed differently and it's brushed in different directions and
the the fibres are much shorter. So what we can do here is we're just start to
lay the fibres over those patchy bits and lay quite thinly for now because we
can build that up later on if we want to, but we don't want it flattening as want
to see some dimension in it and texture I think this is a corriedale carded wool which
is a natural sort of shade and you can see already how
that's starting to change the appearance. I'm just going to use my single
needle here and it doesn't need to be really over felted as it's just going to hold. Remember these
these are not toys they're not going to be handled as it is it is a piece of art to be looked at. So can you see how that different
texture is coming in now? Much more like one of our British beaches. I spent a lot of time visiting Bridlington beach as we were only about 12 miles
away when I was growing. I also love Scarborough and
the the whole area around the Humber estuary. There we go, so
you can see that's really starting to come on now now but if you wanted it even lighter then
you just add a few more bits and pieces. What I'm going to do later on is come back and I'm going
to add a little bit of height to it and dimension so you will have those undulations that you see on sandy beach, but we'll do those to finish off
as we're just going to lay this base for now. So that's that's the sand done and now we're going
to do the sea which is quite moody as the North Sea quite often is. It's certainly not tropical
waters so I'm going to lay down quite a dark sort of green jade colour which is
quite a moody. So pull that off the base and then we'll just start laying our fibres down. And again, with this have some patches
showing because we're going to add some some different colours and textures so it's
always nice to have some light and shade. What you can also do is you can
actually blend and I have a lighter colour here, a much lighter green so
you can actually if you wanted to, blend that out onto it so you've got a
nice subtle blending effect going on there. So we will lay those on while we're here. Lift that up pop that underneath and then you
see you've got that nice shading going on there. However you want to do it's up to you and, if
you want tropical sandy beaches then you you do it that way as it's your project. This is just
my take ona seascape because it reminds me of when I was a lot younger with many
happy North Sea coast memories. My dad was originally a Hull lad and he he used to love going back there and just
wandering down by the old fish docks. You can't walk down there anymore but you know when my
dad was alive you could you could and he would love to have a wander back. It really is
beautiful along the Marina and the old fish stocks down there it's absolutely beautiful
it's had been so much regeneration work done. Now we're just going to felt this gently down
and we don't want to flatten it because you can see already we've got this really nice
sort of light and shade effect going on. I'll just go in with this here and we're going to tap that down gently, in fact I'm going to go in with just two
needles actually so I don't over flatten it. And then, if you want and you have
the punch tool, you can do the same. This does reduce needle marks using
the punch tool as well. It really it is my go-to felting tool for flat pieces and
if you're making a hare and big floppy ears it's brilliant for for really getting a nice
smooth even finish. Even if we do flatten this out we can come back and we're going
to add more wool and embellishments. I'm not worried about this this visible line here because we're going to overlap the
fibres so they will be spilling over. I'm just speeding this up a bit and then I'll
just put some over the edges so that when we come to finish it we haven't got any raw
edges of the pre-felt underneath showing. Peel that gently off and as you can
see those fibres are just catching, and then we'll just go over that with a single needle just to really push those
through. As I said before you just need one needle one which is more than adequate, especially
when you're doing a picture that's not too big. I also made a smaller one here as you can see
and it's I've just set it in this frame which looks really nice. I can imagine that on a
little card as well you could actually pop it on the front of a card as a gift and make it
even smaller. Friends and family will love them! You can pick up frames for
a few quid now these days That's our base for the sea and can
you see as well if you want to just tease things around you can use your needle
as a tool. Your hands your hands are also great great tools so never forget to use your
hands which is really important with felting as you can manipulate the wool and firm
things up. You can also pull the wool away from the base. There we go, that's our sea
done. Now we're going to move on to the sky which is quite a nice bright sky. I've
done that because it gives it nice contrast between the darker two-thirds
going on in the sea and sand. I've have some sky blue carded wool here,
really nice and you can also use wool top, or anything you want for this but
these are what I've put in the the felt club boxes which is actually project
of the month at the moment and this is what has gone out to all my lovely felt club members.
If you are here from the Felt Club and you are felting along with me, then hello and
thank you so much for all your support! It is amazing that some of you I have been
with me for five years or more which is which is just brilliant! So I'm just just breaking
up these fibres and again leaving some sort of gappy areas as it doesn't have to be fully covered
especially as it's the sky, where you get a lot of of white coming through as clouds. I
think actually what I'm going to do here is some storm clouds just over in
this corner and I'm going to do I'm just going to pop that on there. I don't know if
this will work but we'll see? Pop that there just gently tuck it on and
I'm going to put it under there and then I will come the other way with the blue on top.
I think maybe if we we just bring it over here and then what i will probably do maybe place
some white on it just to to dull that grey because it's a bit stark at
the moment. So let's get that up to the corner there, bring that blue
over and what you could also do is you could you could actually lay just lay some blue
over that which really tones it down. The sky is going to be flatter but but with
a little texture and you can see I'm just using one needle here which is working
perfectly fine. I have some white here so we can maybe just see how I'm just
really pulling those fibres across, almost like a cobweb, so barely visible
and then I'm bringing that across that grey as well which is is helping that
to blend in. That's looking a bit better and maybe a few more over here. So just really pull out those fibers. Now this
is where you really don't want to over felt so i'm just going to just tack it down gently. Keep pulling that off the mat periodically. Yes that's looking okay and then what I've
got here as well for for some contrast is silk and merino wool top and, as you can see
it's got a nice sort of shine to it . You don't need much and I'm just going to take
a few wisps of it. I'm not going to do a sun or add anything else as I don't think it
needs it. Lay that on and just gently felt on to add a little more detail. You can tease that out and if you find
that's too stark you can go back and overlay some of the carded wool; you see how that's toning that down? Probably just a little bit there as
well because we've got a bit of a sharp point on the end there
which we really don't want. This is all about texture and creating movement. I think I'm going to bring that white over
there so that grey is kind of barely there but it's it's not too stark. That's looking
better and I'm a bit happier with that now. A nice flat grey wool top would work
quite quite nicely there as well. There we go, it's almost like we've got
clouds coming in here. Storm clouds going on in the background, threatening which is
typical of the the north sea coast. As you can see now how we've got those
edges but don't worry about them as we'll fold those over so all we do here is
take our needle and bring those edges over. I don't want it too neat though. If
you're mounting it and putting it in a frame you you you may want
to to neaten those edges but I quite like the sort of natural earthy feel
of that. There we go you can see we have our base laid down and it's looking pretty gorgeous
already so that's good. Really pleased with that so now it's time to start adding our texture
and we will work from the bottom up again. I think what I'm going to do now is create the
sort of undulations that you see in the sand and to do that I'm just going to put little pieces of this carded wool down and kind of
fold it over so that it stays raised. You don't want the whole thing to to flatten
and you you want to leave bits like so. Again, this is just how I
am doing it and we just have a little bit here. Not too much as it's just for a little
bit of detail maybe a little bit here. Can you see how I'm barely felting this and also
if you go in at a diagonal angle with your needle you'll reduce those needle marks as
well, and then you can tease it over Now we have those little areas nicely popped
on we're going to work on this sea area here. It looks very choppy and there's quite a lot
going on so I think we will start with that grey again. What I have here is a nice grey blue/denim
kind of carded wool which is slightly mottled. We can pop some of that on as well, and
again it's just to create a little bit more light and shade. Lay a few fibres on and thin
them out just felting gently until it holds. and what you can also do is if you've got the grey
and the blue you can just blend those together with your fingers. Pop those on so it gives the impression
that there's quite a lot going on here and just go with the blue over the top there,
tacking that on just to create some nice shading. Okay, you can see here this is quite quite
textured and almost an appearance of the of the waves, so what I'm going to
do is I'm going to go back to that sort of deep green that we started with
and I'm going to pop a little bit of grey in there as well. I'm just going
to take a bit of that out. I don't want much as I just want to give the impression
of waves so we are rolling that wool over and then just felting at the base so
it just holds. That's part is loose so what we're actually doing is we're going
to just bring that over and felt the ends only and maybe add a lighter green here. Add a little bit of light green
to that and pull it apart, fold it and then pop that here, and you see how
that's hanging over like that, we'll just felt that underneath and then we'll bring that
over and we're going to just tease that wool over. We are going to add some more embellishments
to that as well so I don't want it too high, but just giving that impression of movement. Maybe just pop a little bit
of colour there which is quite nice and then add a
little more of the blue/grey. So we're keeping this nice and loose
and again you can use your fingers to just bring that over a little bit so we have the
appearance of rolling waves and choppy waters. If you wanted you could go down the
middle and you could split that in two. It's quite abstract you know so you
don't have to be precise as it's whatever design you really prefer. We have quite a light area here which is not really
tying in with this bit here so I'm just going to pop a very thin layer over the top; you see how
that tones that down and it makes more sense now? just use your needle there to
tease out that wool a little. There we go. I'm going to pop a
little bit of white on as well because obviously you would see that and I'm
going to bring that up over this wave here. Again just tack that gently on in very thin sparse pieces, so it's barely there, and in different directions as well because
that will give it that impression of movement. There we go, so that's that part done and the
sky I think we'll just leave alone because I'm quite happy with that as it is. Now what I'm
going to do is use what I have here and this is silk throwsters waste which is just glorious for
effects. I love using this and it will give that wonderful impression of the of the the waves
breaking along the shore, as you can see here. There's so much you can do with it it could be
used anywhere really. I'm just going to use a pair of scissors (chunky pair here which
are not very good) and I'm just going to spread that out. The trick
with this is to spread it out so I'm just going to lay that along
that shoreline because that's where the the waves would be breaking and I'm gently
tacking that on make that a bit broader there. And do you see why it didn't matter
about this line that we had earlier. And then you can just drag that down and you can almost have kind of a break
in it there so you've got the sand visible here, bring that down. I also have this lovely plant-dyed art yarn again
which will, if you've got the the felt club box, be in there. I'm just going to snip a little
bit of that off and add a little detail along here. You can now see how getting this
texture in really brings it alive. Make sure you don't over felt it
as it needs to be sitting quite proud of the base.
We could have some of these waves spilling over onto the beach. You will never get two two pictures the same
which is the lovely thing about needle felting, particularly when you're creating
something like this as it's always going to be different. I think
we'll have a little bit more going on here and a little bit more of the the silk throwsters waste just coming
down here. Then we will thin it out there and then we'll have it building up. Yep, keep that patch there and then
just have this little section here. You're just really making it up as you
go along in whatever feels right for you. Bring that over and I'm just going to tip
that and blow off the little bits of silk You can also ad the silk to very small areas, almost coming over with the wave and you can give
the illusion of it breaking along the shoreline. I'm hardly felting it on there but it won't
fall off when you you tip it and will hold really well. You can now see how it's really
come alive. That's working really well! Along the the beach on this piece here I have
added hand-dyed Teasdale locks which are lovely as we really we really want some nice texture
going in here along the base of the sand, so I'm just going to felt that on. Tack it on
gently and you can move it as you do so. You could felt one end on and then the other, or you just go along gently. See how
that just adds such a beautiful texture and dimension. We'll move that up there
we can bring that silk over onto the sand. You can use as little or as much as you like but
I definitely think this is a case of less is more then you can continue in specific areas putting
little embellishments in. I'm not going to put the beads on today because we'll be here for a long
time but I've just popped some beads on thin wire and then all I've done is pull a little bit
of wool over the the ends just to hold them in place so you don't need to sew anything. I've
done exactly the same here with these beads, and again it just it just adds more dimension. You
can raid your old your old jewellery for beads and embellishments. If you're older, like me, you
know you've got a box full of all those lovely boho style beads and bangles you used to wear;
well I still wear a lot of mine but I've got so so much from 20 years ago that i just to raid my
my old jewellery box. Charity shops are brilliant for really cheap jewellery. As you can see, that's
looking lovely now but really felt it needed a focus point and these these little yachts in
the distance are perfect as and they've got that really sort of windswept look. I'm just going to
show you how to make them because it's so easy. I've also here done a little dark line across the horizon. You don't have to do this
but if you just want a little bit of separation then you can just pop that that line in there
just so it's a slight contrast that gives you the impression of of the horizon and then, if
it's too much, you can just tease some wool over the top of it, just
really thin wisps. This is a dark blue wool top that I'm using
there but any dark wool will do. So we've got this little yacht here, three
in total but I'll probably just do one today to save time. Take a little bit of white wool
and roll in the palm of your hand and pop it on like so. It's not even shaped properly
as you're going to give the impression of a yacht. Felt it down gently and tease into
shape with your needle and fingers. You can tease over those edges and then
just pop it down at the back there and just felt that (drag it with your needle
if necessary) so it narrows at the back. Don't be too precious but make sure it's straight. There we go, and that's it it's really all you need. Now for the sail, and again we're
really going to create that shape whilst it's on the actual piece. Use a tiny amount
of wool (you can add more later) and just roll firmly in your hand to create
a triangular shape (with a pointy end). Place that on there and felt it at an
angle so you've got that wind swept look to it. Can you see what I'm doing here? I
have left a slight gap between the sail and boat. Hold one end and just
straighten it out using your needle and then you can really bring that
sail up to a nice sort of sharp point, and at a slight angle so it's really got that that
feeling of movement. Don't worry if it's not quite sitting where it should be as you can
move that around but don't over felt it. And then maybe a tiny piece of wool here that just represents the
rigging. Hold a very thin piece with one hand and then
just gently felt into place. With this one I've added a couple more in
the distance and made them smaller to give it perspective. I've sat one just on the
horizon line there which is a little bit smaller but it's entirely up to you how you do
it but that is really it for my piece. Pull the piece away from the topper and
you will see it comes away quite easily, and because you've used your topper you've
protected your mat. I just wanted to show you if you use the foam pop that topper on
there and it works exactly the same way. I'm not pressing that down so you work in
exactly the same way on a piece of foam as you would your rice mat. There you have it.
your finished needle-felted picture. If you have some beads then feel free to embellish it or
add whatever you like. I have fastened mine onto a little piece of driftwood and this is another
picture I created of sheep in the rolling hills. Again you can see the bead embellishments there
which work really well and I've got some lovely purple wool and I've even done some little
French knots here which which look really nice and very simple to do. If you're looking to make
something that you want to stand up in a frame for a gift or to add to cards then this is
ideal and it doesn't take too long. So I hope you enjoyed the tutorial and I will put links
for the mats, pre-felt wool and needles down below. If you are new to needle felting
you can find everything on my website. You can also subscribe to my channel below so you
don't miss any new tutorials and events Thanks so much for joining me and I hope you enjoyed
learning to paint with wool. See you again soon!
