Ever since I was small, I have loved to create. Now, every time I pick up a pencil, pen, or paint brush, I pour my heart into my art. I always put a little bit of myself into everything I create.
It all started with a tuff of wool, a barbed needle, and a book on needle felting... my first ever needle felted creation was a mouse. I was so excited and I wanted to continue to create. I have given life to two alpacas, two pigs, a frog, an owl, and two sheep. These tiny creations were fun, but I felt like I could do more... I wanted to go BIGGER!!
My first giant creation was my Krazy Birdz. He took me three months to complete, because I wanted him to be perfect. He actually started as a drawing, colors and all, and I took the liberty of taking pictures of the process.
Once I sketched a small version of what I wanted, I drew him bigger and added color. It took a while to figure out what colors were going to go where, and I wanted him to be as colorful as possible.
After sketching and coloring, I picked up a needle felting needle, a piece of foam, and a handful of core to begin shaping my Birdz head and beak. Once I had the basic shapes; two circles, a triangle, and a square, I continued to felt. Once the shapes were felted together, I began to shape them even more, to create two eyes, a head with cheeks, and a long beak.
I then created the feet. I wanted something simple, but still recognizable as feet, so I went with a classic two-toe in the front, one-toe in the back cartoon bird approach. Too many toes would not have made him look cuter, so I went with the least amount possible. The idea turned out to be PERFECT!! All I did to create these feet was roll a bit of core to make a long tube. Once that tube was nice and hard after needle felting, I pulled more core and rolled it into a smaller, shorter tube and attached it about mid-way on the larger tube. To make it symmetric, I felted the feet and shaped them to make one piece.
The body of my Birdz was ENORMOUS!! It started out flat and once I had needle felted enough, I began to shape it into a sphere. Instead of making it one big solid piece of wool (which would have depleted all of my current core at the time) I decided to fill him with fiber fill. He is firm, but not solid, which made him just right for a hug.
I made his proportions extreme, to add a kind of cartoonish look.
Now, the fun part, adding color. I found the colors from my sketch almost down to the exact shades and began to cover the core. I started with the beak, a turquoise blue with an orange-yellow nose. The head and eye lids were to be red, and I covered and tightened. Once the core was completely covered, I continued with the details.
I found white wool to finish the eyes, then I grabbed a handful of black wool to start on the pupils and irises. Once a basic outline had been formed, I added a mixture of green-blue and baby blue to give his eyes a life-like look, finishing off with white glares and a black outline around the entire eye. Next, the nostrils were added and the nose was also outlined in black to help make the colors pop, and not blend and disappear within one another. As for the beak, it was a long and hard decision on what to do. At first, the beak was going to remain solid, with no lines, but then, I added lines to the drawing and it looked amazing. A small smirk finishes off the lazy-eyed expression.
The hairdo for my big guy was fun to create, because I did not want it to be small like it was in the drawing. I picked out a couple shades of pink and began to pull pieces and laying them down in a circle. Once I added enough "volume" to the doo, I took my needle and felted only the center of the circle to connect all of the fibers, without compromising the volume and craziness of the hair. I placed the hair on my Birdz and felted it tightly onto his head. Once I could pull on the hair without it coming out, I knew it was time to style it. I cupped it in my hands and pulled up to create an afro-looking doo. As I shaped the hair, I took tuffs of fiber and needle felted it into the areas that seemed to be light or thin.
When coloring his body, I started with his bright yellow belly. I needle felted a sheet before attaching it to the core, to ensure full coverage. Once it was firm, I outlined once again with black wool and added a V where the his chest would be. The V also helped me align his head later on. As for the rest of the body, I needle felted as I went. I added wool as I felted and sat for hours in front of the television, just poking a big ball of fluff. It took me a couple of days, but he was nearly finished.
The feet were last, and I decided to make them purple. I spent a couple minutes covering these, since they were the smallest part of the project.
Using the V on his chest, I aligned and attached my Birdz head. Once his head was on straight and there was no way it would fall off, I attached his feet.
Now, it was time to cover the body with some big fluffy wings. He may be too big to fly, but that does not mean he can't show off. I decided to keep the tops of the wings the same color as the body, but to break it up, I added some navy blue towards the tips. To create this effect, I laid out the wool intended for the wings and needle felted the tips of one end together. This end was the part that I attached to my Birdz body. Once the wing was felted to keep it together, I added a couple tuffs of blue on top, towards the ends and lightly felted it onto the wings. I made sure not to poke through the bottom, which is the part of the wing that you can see in the picture, so I would not have blue tuffs all over the wing. Once I was sure the blue was secure, I flipped it over and attached it to my Birdz.
The only thing left to do was attach a small tuff of green wool to his butt, and make sure his head, feet, and wings were secured to his body. His tail was done in the same manner as his hair, just a smaller tuff.
He amazes everyone who has seen him.
I am still blown away at the fact that I turned a 2-D image into a 3-D masterpiece!!
My mom decided she wanted her very own Krazy Birdz, so I drew one up and she told me the colors she wanted it to be. It now sits in her fiber workshop and greets her when she walks in. The only difference in creating this Birdz, was the fact that I wet-felted the dreads for the hairdo.
Rebecca
