"If you hear a voice within you say, 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced." --Vincent van Gogh

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Felt Melt




I belong to an online group called "Textile Challenges". The group owner issues a monthly challenge, which the members can choose to participate in. This past month's challenge was called "Felt Melt". We were challenged to use acrylic felt (the cheap stuff!), place some kind of resist on top of it, and then "melt" it away with a heat gun. These are the two experiments I did. The first (multicolored) one is a tie dye colored felt with various ribbons and fibers stitched onto it, and melted. The second (pink) was a dark brown felt which had a pattern on it. I followed the pattern loosly with white puffy paint and sprinkled with red embossing powder while still wet. After the paint dried, I used the heat gun to puff the paint and melt away the felt. It was a fun experiment and I will probably do more with this in the future.

2 comments:

Susan said...

Wow that's different! It looks cool! Did you have to do it outside? Or was it not too smelly? ;)

Michelle said...

Thanks, glad you like it!

Yes, the felt gives off fumes when you melt it, and is best blasted outside. The fumes aren't overwhelming, but who wants to mess with that? It melts very quickly, too.