DIY - Wire Bending Jig!

So I bought some awesome thick 1/2" armature wire a while ago for a project that I'm finishing up.  What I didn't realize was how incredibly difficult it is to cut & bend.

Instead of investing in one of these traditional wire bending gadget-jig-things, which I don't even think would work....

I decided to use what I got around the house! 

Used a couple C-Clamps & a scrap of wood.
Clamped it to my work "bench", which is really
just an Ikea shelf outside. 

Before I unclamped it, I just bent the wire up!

This was another "wire bender jig" I used.
The iron bars that are on the outside of my windows!!

So the moral of this experiment is...

You don't need no stink'n fancy tools to get the job done!!  Just look around the house & you are bound to find exactly what you need!

Almost Done!!

Here is the completed picts for the felting part of the Sparrow Sculpture. Just finished all the sculpting, and just need to finish the wood base so it can hang. Should finish it tomorrow... and have finished picts!!!






All the felting done!! Line work is fun, but takes a little time.












Detail of finished felting.









Time to put it all together! Just cut a small hole to allow the armature wire to slip through the felt to the back.












Felting the wings on!










All done & ready for it's wood base. Just laid it on the wood....









And traced around the outside. I like this look cause it will be like a bold black outline around the whole thing. And gives me a way to hang it!





Outline ready to cut out. It was too late tonight to jigsaw the wood (little kids living next door) but will cut it out first thing in the morning!






Have a Great Memorial Day Weekend!!
Be safe & eat lots of BBQ!!!! Yea Summer!!

A Long Day of Felting!

I worked most of today, it felt good to get some work done cause I've been kinda lazy recently. So I shared the first process picts for my newest piece yesterday, so I thought I'd continue! Here was today's progress picts for the Tattoo Sparrow Felted Sculpture!




I started by sketching a pattern for the wings. I wanted both to be the same, so I made a drawing to cut the wool-felt from.








I traced the pattern of the wings on some pre-felted white wool. This is my new favorite material to make things go faster. Instead of felting wool from scratch into a thin shape, I just use the pre-felt & needle on top!!






I want one of the wings to come off the base into 3d, so I felted the armature wire into the wing. This helps with support & posing.







Both wings all cut & ready for color!








I used my handy new PhotoShop Elements to scale the original concept drawing up to the size of the wings. I like the shape of the body that I drew before, so I just printed it out to be able to use as a pattern.







This is another great reason to have the pattern. I cut it up to insure the shape & placements of the different colors.








I wanted the blue color on the body of the bird to be slightly thicker than the rest, so I just added a layer of white wool to add a little bulk.









Time to start the color!!!










I'm a sucker for some nice clean lines & graphic elements in my pieces, so I took the time to sculpt in the colored highlights. I wanted to have some white at the bottom of the wings.






After much needling, I finished all the blue! It was alot of needling!!








I then used the body pattern to sketch in the placement for the red under-belly color.








Fun color on the body is done!










All the color is done! Looking good!








Time for the line detail! Just using my handy black wool yarn to felt in the bold black lines around the shapes...

It was a long day & I'm done working, but he is coming along nicely!!

I dye with iDYE!!

So here is a short tutorial on how to dye some wool using Jacquard's iDye. I wanted to start another series of process picts for my newest sculpture. So in the coming days (or weeks depending on how fast I get this piece done) I will be showing the complete process of creating my newest Felted Sculpture A Tattoo-Inspired Sparrow. Sh here is the first step....

I dye with iDye...


Start by pre-soaking your wool in a warm bath of water with a splash of vinegar. Pre-soaking your wool helps the fibers open up & gets them ready to receive the dye. It also helps with getting a nice even overall dyed color.







While your wool is soaking, get you pot of hot water started on the stove. I have a specific pot that I use for dying so that I don't make stew or something that ends up slightly blueish in color.








I wanted to dye my wool a nice blue color. Be sure to check out these iDyes cause they have so many yummy colors made for natural dyes. They are technically made to be thrown into you washing-machine, but I've found it's super easy to use them on the stove top!








You will be adding some white vinegar to the pot of hot water. This is used as the dye's MORDANT, which is to help set the dye in the fibers. I'm not quite sure of all the science-type stuff on it, but it has to do with attracting the dye molecules and affixing them to the individual wool fibers. You can use this method with cotton fibers, the only difference is that you will use Salt as the Mordant!






Now add your dye to the pot. Since you are controlling the amount of dye for the wool, you can add as little or as much depending on how saturated you want the color to be. I wanted a medium (not too light, not too dark) so I added a little bit, then added more about 1/2 way through.






So add the dye, add the vinegar, then add you wool! Be sure to gently stir the wool through the time of dying. You don't want to aggressively stir the wool cause it will start to felt (which I have done) but you want to be sure to move the fibers around. This will help with getting even color coverage.









Now let the wool sit & cook for about 1/2 hour.






All dyed! You will be able to see if the dye has been completely soaked up by looking at the left-over water. It should be fairly clear. If your water is still dark or opaque, then you either added too much dye & your fiber can't take anymore, or you need to leave it in the water for longer. I've also just pulled wool out after a short time cause I wanted a lighter color *This may cause bleeding because the dye has not had time to set.


All done & just hanging up to dry. Should be ready for me to use tomorrow. I have a home-made clothes line hanging outside my window with some twine & clothes pins. Not that pretty or strong, but just perfect to hang tufts of wool!!

I love dyeing wool because I get to control what colors I make, but also get surprised & inspired by anything that I wasn't expecting!

Airbrush Process!

I haven't posted many process pictures recently except for the Koi, so I thought I'd share some with you today. I was asked a while ago to put together a Airbrushing Process Tutorial for the Dabbled Blog. Nancy was kind enough to have me guest blog with this tutorial!! I haven't posted a tutorial in soooo long, I thought I'd repost it here & give a Shout-Out to Dabbled!!


Airbrushing some Chocolate Frosting!!!




Here are all the supplies you need to help paint & shade your Felted Sculptures!!

*Airbrush, Compressor, & bottles
*Watered down Acrylic Paint
*Yummy Felted Cupcakes!!






This is what the cupcakes look like BEFORE any paint has been sprayed. Just plain white frosting all ready to be transformed into Chocolate!!








I didn't want to get any over-spray of the brown onto the "cake", so I put a little paper & masking tape to cover that part.

First layer of color a warm yellow!!





I like to paint in light layers of many different colors. I think this gives the colors more depth instead of just blasting a single color on to the wool. Also if you get to much acrylic paint onto the wool, it tends to bleed & get a little crunchy.







Slowly getting darker & darker!! Going from the yellow base to a warm brown.






Starting to look like chocolate with the darker brown!! This could pass as a Milk Chocolate, but I want a darker frosting.









Working with the darkest (almost black) brown to add some dark shadows within the twirl.







Yummy Yummy!!! Looking Delicious!! Love the dark shading in the creases!!

Almost done just need....








Cherries On Top!!! Yea! All done!

Guest Blog Spot!

I just wanted to let everybody know about a guest Blog Spot I wrote on one of my favorite blogs:

Dabbled.org

Nancy was awesome enough to ask me to share a tutorial about my airbrush work. I did a photo tutorial showing the progression of some Chocolate Cupcakes!!! Please check it out....

(preview)




And my Movie Gig is going well!! I had to sign all these wavers about how I wouldn't Blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc ANYTHING about the production!!! So far it's pretty tame, and i wanted to share a picture with you!










Ever wonder what People Who Work on Movies drive to work???
Well, I'll give you one guess which car is mine (here's a hint):

Truck... Big Truck... Fancy Truck... Truck... Beetle... GIANT Truck...

You guess.

Snakes & Cupcakes are No Joke

Today's post is full of in-process PICTURES!!! YEA!!! So to start it off here are a couple of pictures to prove that I am super serious about CupCakes!!! Here are a couple of working photos of the new slew of Cupcakes & Cherries that I'm finishing up!












Don't forget...
Enter to Win your very own Felted Cupcake Here!!!!
Still got plenty of time to enter, getting off to a great start!!


And also included in this Picture Post today is a series of Photos that show the Airbrush Painting process from my newest Felted Sculpture!! It's a custom piece that I did for my brother (actually it's the first "celebrity" piece I've done, and hopefully will have picts of said celebrity and the snake in a couple days!) He's a Black Mamba Snake!!! Very cool, the snake is kinda boring, but had fun doing all the shading & painting!!



















Here is the snake all plain & white needle-felted Romney Wool. 99% of all the sculpting was done before I started to paint him. So, got the airbrush out & mixed the watery acrylics & was ready to go!




















Started with a yellowish base color all over the snake. Wanted to have the under color to be warm instead of white.




















Dark brown was next. This is the start of the dark shading & super dark body color on the top. You can see how I started to shade the top scales while trying to leave the lighter space in between.




















BLACK BLACK!! Yea, He's starting to come to life!! This is the first of many, many layers of Black color for the body & even more shading.




















After many layers of black, he's almost done!! I like how his scales turned out with the lighter lines between the diamond shapes. I was trying to make him pretty realistic (well, a little general, but has all the details. I've been trying really hard to work on adding uber detail cause many of my favorite felting artists are those that make tiny super fine detailed sculptures! So Jealous!)




















So here he is!! Added a few details on his face to help make it pop. He turned out pretty cool, wish the subject was a bit more colorful, but hey, this is what the Black Mamba looks like, so whatcha gonna do?







This is his done & shaded under belly!! Like the ridges!

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