Sunday, September 26, 2010

Cheshire Cat





My Super
Psychedelic Cheshire Cat Won First Place in the Living Felt Art Doll contest!
At the end of August I entered a contest sponsored by Living Felt; a Alice in Wonderland themed contest. I was so excited because I wanted to create really ambitious piece for it. Earlier this year I found the wonderful products at Living Felt and I loved how fast their Merino Cross batts felt up. Thats when was doing the Troll Heads in February.. Then I had also found this really awesome neon wool that glowed under blacklight dyed by a seller on Etsy (Zauberzeug) I've made some small little psychedelic critters . At first I just thought I'd do a disembodied Cheshire Cat's Head! Like a Troll Head..only a Cat. I was highly influenced by those comericals of the 3D movie where the Cheshire Cat is totally coming at you with glowing eyes! Silly me I had just imagined using that neon wool in the eyes. I actually made the head first, totally complete in itself. The head is felted on top of a soft foam ball. Then my brain was like no.. you should do a whole cat! So I had these huge football wet felted shaped globey things and at some point I wired the tail and covered it with purple felt. Its a this point I realized I'd mixed up the deadlines for some other things and had to go work on that stuff for a bit. My grinning Cat Face ball hung out with me for a while before I started working on it again. Unfortunately, sometimes when I'm really excited about a project I forget to stop and take work in progress pics. I made a lot of progress at this little Con that my friend Shawnna was at. I was just keeping her company and needle felting away on what looked like a white football with purple tail. I attached the head and the body and covered the whole thing during those exciting hours! At one point some dudes come up and tell me "Man, that thing is sick" in an admiring tone.. I replied and its not even finished yet, wait till I do the stripes! I used foam in the paws covered with core wool, then purple, then felted the neon on and the details of the paw pads. I made my husband hold my Chaucer Cat (my real Cheshire cat) upside down so I see his paw pads. The striping was the hardest part really, it was very tedious. But it was the most fun too. I'd like to say I made a plan and drew it all out before, but I didn't. I just let it flow... the stripes evolved in the best possible way. The tail was crazy because I had to follow the colorway and I almost ran out of green. :( I had so much fun creating such a large piece. I hoped, but really didn't plan on winning! Crazy!

4 comments:

Madonna B said...

Ahhhh, just so awesome! :)

Heather Elizabeth Brauner said...

Freekin Beautiful! Thank you for following my blog .I think your felting is fantastic! I just started needle felting, I'm OK at it,and have tryed wet felting with limited sucess . Keep up the good work and keep inspireing people with your ART .

Gail said...

I am totally and completely in love with your cheshire cat! The facial expression reminds me so much of my cat that passed away last year. It's perfect!

FeltersJourney said...

What a gorgeous Cheshire Cat - I LOVE his psychadelic markings!