Last weekend I went on a workshop to make a 3D cat face portrait. This was with The Lady Moth in Cambridge https://www.facebook.com/theladymoth/
I went with my lovely friends Maxine and Christina, both cat and felting fans, like myself.
At first, to be honest with you, I was a bit hesitant about going. The workshop was on a Sunday afternoon, after a very busy week and weekend, I was driving up to Glasgow from Cambridge the next day, and I was sure my version of a cat portrait would look nothing like my cat Sheba! In essence, I wasn't in a very good frame of mind. The saving grace was that I hoped that, by spending time crafting and with two lovely friends, my spirits would lift.
And they did. And I was quite proud of my creative effort at the end of it!
There is nothing like spending some quiet time crafting (we were quiet quite a lot of the time, concentrating!), allowing the mind to both concentrate and wander, and have something creative at the end of the session. It's good for the soul, and good for the mind.
This is my gorgeous, sweet and caring cat Sheba. Both she and her brother, Tibby, 'own' us. We had to send in a photo of the cat we wanted to felt in advance, so that The Lady Moth could bring the right colour wool. I chose Sheba, as Tibby is mainly black, with fewer distinct markings, and would probably be easier to recreate.
The process was very interesting - a mixture of 2D and 3D felting, combining both techniques. We had to imagine the cat face in 3D which was actually quite difficult, and slowly build up the contours, starting with the nose and 'snout'.
We started with an outline of the face, and then started building the nose/snout
Then we built up the face,
before adding in the ears, eyes and detailed markings
With a name like The Lady Moth, you might imagine someone gothic - and these early pictures definitely seemed gothic horror!!
They looked downright scary!
(However, The Lady Moth is lovely and very encouraging!)
We all had a fabulous time!
I know what I would do differently next time, such as building the face up more and if I had more time I would probably have added a few more details. I still need to add whiskers!
I think Sheba liked it! I'm not sure. It was certainly a more sedate reaction than Maxine's cat's reaction to their portrait - approaching it cautiously with suspicion, bopping it on the nose, and then running away!
Didn't we all do well?
Now, I just have to make one for Tibby, so that he doesn't feel left out!
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