YORKTON - Learning the basics of needle felting proved a popular Culture Days Yorkton event with close to 20 participants taking part in the program Wednesday.
Instructor Angelina Kardynal said needle felting for art uses raw wool – wool that has not be spun into yarn -- as the medium.
The natural wool is dyed to provide artists with a palette of colours to work with.
Kardynal said the one drawback to felting is that the dyed wool generally needs to be ordered online, but is still “relatively inexpensive” in terms of art creation.
Instead of a brush a painter would use, needle felting uses a long, thin needle which has a series of notches at its tip.
When the artist pokes the needle into and out of the wool, these notches tangle the fibres of the wool together, and as you felt, the wool will start to feel firmer, and will shrink in size.
“I kind of compare it to sculpting with wool,” said Kardynal.
The use of wool to create art is not new.
“It’s sort of an ancient art form,” said Kardynal, who added the basic process was likely used for more practical creations such as mitts and hats, with pure art efforts likely evolving from there.
As an art form Kardynal said felting is a good one for beginning artists in the sense “it’s very forgiving.” If something is not going as the artist envisioned it can be pulled off and started again.
“It’s a really nice medium to begin with,” she said.
Even as an experienced artist in other mediums Kardynal said she appreciates felting as it helps her in terms of seeing shapes and colours.
