"Lake Winnipeg"

My first attempt at wet-felting a picture.

I'll be spending more time rolling this piece this afternoon.

It's been an interesting journey to wool. I'd been talking with a friend about how much I disliked using toxic products for paintings, particularly the varnish that provides the wonderful finish that I and my clients appreciate. I started investigating other options at our local paint shop. There are some eco-paints out there, some that may or may not contain arsenic and/or other not-so-desireables, but the price point is such that I'd have to change and severely limit my present process. Additionally, I couldn't find a responsibly-supportive varnish alternative. What started out as a wonderfully pleasant, soul-feeding experience of abstract expressionism was now becoming a cerebrally-bathed exercise. While all this way going on, I was continuing my weekly wanderings through our local thrift shop and realizing there were certain items that seemed to have a semi-permanent life on the shelves - doilies, bags of raw wool for quilts, pillowcases, etc. Every time I wandered by these items, my brain went into upcycling mode until one day I bought a bag of wool and went home to research. I was surprised to learn that wool has all those lovely benefits mentioned in a previos post, and was thrilled to think that I could become skilled at making pieces with such a natural and easily-sourced material. I've been looking into where I can find locally-produced roving, asking experienced felters about the likelihood of being able to use the thrift shop wool (my previous post tells the story of difficulties I've had with felting it), and building skills through researching online and trying my hand at felting something small every day. I'm hoping to be able to find a local alpaca farm that cleans and cards from its own alpacas. In the meantime, I'm also experimenting with basic felting/fulling of premade wool items. It feels so enriching to be working with wool.