In late May of 2025 I visited McFarland Park and captured this view of the adjacent vineyard in bloom: and not only the vines, but the wild daisies growing so beautifully between the symmetry. The distant typography reveals the wonderful perspective of rows tapering to their vanishing points – at least two. A stand of trees in the distance balanced against the “long-armed” birch in front provides the scene with a lovely balance and focal points – thanks to my customers who pointed this out. So, here we go!
There are many phases to a large 76 x 32 inch work, all adding up to at least 4 – 6 weeks of work. At first there is the “mapping” which determines technical aspects, including the complicated perspective of the scene. The second row in from the left will provide not only a horizon point, but also another where the midground is divided into two planes: fore and aft we could call them, where the ground rises up – who would have known that Niagara on the Lake had much in the way of visual typography! Here are 3 images showing my earlier work at the Jordan Art Gallery which inspired this larger version. The “cartoon” as artists often call the layout/mock up, allows for working out the linear perspective and other main details. I don’t typically go through this process with smaller works as all of that can be readily worked out with the compositional ground of wool fibres (you can see that on most of my former blogs). Technically, I have divided the composition, vertically, into thirds, and horizontally into quarters and thirds. The image itself was very conducive to these divisions.
Before starting with any fibres, I also made up a second version of the layout with parchment/tracing paper. I will use this version as a guideline to lay out my wool fibre ground.
Once approved, I began the actual work. First the measuring and cutting of the quilt batting, foundation support – cut larger than the 76 x 32 inches that the finished work will be. Under this layer I will use a layer of tulle fabric which I discovered only recently acted as a perfect stabilizer and prevented the felting from imbedding itself into my sponge/foam work surface. I had a bolt of this fabric left over from a wedding and have used it for many other purposes as well.
Starting in with the first compositional layer: In a scene that has many layers from closest foreground to distant background, the needle felting process requires you to lay in the most distant grounds first, otherwise the fibres will tend to interfere with the foreground structure. In a work with a sky feature, that is generally where I begin.
With a background in hand-spinning, I have used many of the skills learned in that field. One of them is “carding” which is the process of brushing the fibres so that they easily separate and can be controlled into whatever thickness and “spread” that I wish them to be. My fibres are bought as factory dyed “rovings”, a product whereby the dyed fibres are also factory carded and attenuated into fist-sized “ropes”, as you can see below. Hand spinners can easily use rovings straight from the package.
Now onto the first layer of detailing: There are many, many what I like to call “lay lines” in work like this one: rows of vines which are supported by fences made from round wooden posts and many angel-iron posts between. These support rows of wires on which the grape-vines have grown and now bear their May blooms. Behind and in front of each row are the daisies which I will have to graduate from foreground to background using slightly different mixes of silk and wool to show “atmospheric” perspective. The tracing paper has enabled a way to establish these lines, some of which might stay, and others that I might replace.
The posts have been made from my own wet-felted material and cut to their length and diameter. For now they are pinned and lightly needled in place, but later will be hand-stitched and rounded into shape. The last job that I did on this day was to go over the sky once again with a light-colour mix of viscose (bamboo fibre) to give the sky its own perspective (light in the distant horizon and more saturated colour above).
Keep following as I work on the remainder of the width and begin to add in the closer layers to the mid-ground section.
