Hello Felted Chicken of the Woods, My Newest Felt Creation

And here she is. I had to really trust the process on this one. I found these mushrooms growing out of dead rotten wood and thought, what a distinctly beautiful thing to grow and feed from what we think of as being the least beautiful form: decay. The slimy, dark and heavy, a substrate for something startling in its brightness, both of these side by side, so very different and interesting in their own ways. One nurturing and determining the growth of another. 

I started with the browns. I mapped these out and layered felt on top of itself until I had some depth. I then began with the startling white. I moulded the felt into strips and slowly morphed them into mushrooms. Felting takes a lot of trusting the process as you need to build and build on what you already have to achieve the effect you want. 

Once I had added some texture and colour variation to the mushrooms, I felted then into the bark base. It took a lot of manipulating to get it into the shape I wanted. I then stitched the gills in to give even more depth. 

I am quite happy with this one and certainly enjoyed the process.