Delaware Fun A Day is a great project that I have now participated in for two years.

I love that it is a way to light a fire under ones creative tush to make something every day for the month (this year it is January 2016 – 31 days = 31 items made). I decided to work from where I have been recently in my transition between working with ceramic clay in bead and jewelry making and learning about wool dying and blending of colors through my part-time work at the Sarafina Art House.

Not to mention all of the cool artists that are participating! You get to expand your creative artist group by participating in events like this!

I should have been blogging about this all along, but my MarshaNealStudio Instagram seems to be my preferred instant sharing these days (blog posts require way more work). So here is where this adventure started: at work back in October 2015.

Locks are wetted down then added to pots of colored water to dye them.

After the curls and locks are colored, they have to be dried to store them.

This is something I am learning to do through SarafinaFiberArt and these are my first attempts at dying what I call “Zombie Locks” because they are cut short, a bit discolored, and contain some bits of vegetable matter and some other things from the barn yard. My goal was to make some needle felted zombie ornaments for my sister for Christmas, and all of the other locks I had were just too pretty and nice. I needed something that looked like it belonged on a decomposing corpse. These are a bit too pretty too, but when there was some matted v.m. or beetle parts – it was like a bonus!

Fast forward to December & time to sign up for Fun A Day 2016. I decided I wanted to make some wet felted “vessels” of some sort. Was not quite sure if I was going to make various shapes and colors, but I wanted to try it out then find my focus.

Foam shapes cut out to experiment with wet felting with resists to make hollow forms.

Results from wet felting first try with various fibers and shapes. Not so great, but there is potential!

I decided that I liked the triangle form and that they would easily be hung, just as I do with my ceramic vessels – with a wire wrapped handle. So I set off to figure out exactly what I wanted to do.

To figure out the color palette, I decided to pull out my Zombie locks, then start mixing Merino wool from Sarafina to see what colors I could get.

Here is a photo of me using the Sarafina Hand Carders and pulling the merino across to blend it. It is an arm workout when making over 50 colors!

Custom blended merino wool colors. I just love this part!

As I worked on the custom blends I was also taking time to match up the Zombie locks with the custom blended Merino.

As this process lasted all of January, my cat Peeves was quite insistent that she got to be in the middle of it at times. I love those curls too Peeves!

Once the color palettes were sorted, it was time to begin to work on the 31 objects for the Fun A Day opening (if you have not guessed – the 31 objects are representational of 31 days of being creative. There are days into weeks where all that was done was blending colors. My work is about the process as much as making the work.

Laying out the Merino and beginning to wet felt the cones over a foam triangle.

The locks were added when layering the merino and the entire piece was rolled and wet felted.

After the felting process was done, and the resist and soap gotten rid of, it was time to stuff them and let them dry to keep their opened form.

I worked in batches making and drying these pieces (more like 50 pieces by the end of the month as it is quite addictive).

One of the last stages of this process was creating the hanging wire. These were created on my “Now That’s A Jig” and hammered flat to hold its form.

And with that a new item is created and put into the world. They are far from being done with potential. I can completely see these being adorned with seed beads, fiber embroidery, more layers of felt. But for this project, this is where I feel I can stop. That they are finished and I have accomplished my goals of spending a bit of every day in January making a bit of art. Perfecting the colors and process to the best of my knowledge and skill set a this point in my life.

Show info:

Delaware Fun A Day 2016 will ONLY be on display from 5-9pm on Friday, February 5, 2016 at the DCCA in Wilmington, DE. 200 South Madison Street, Wilmington, DE 19801. Check out the Social Media posts: #DEFunADay or #DelawareFunADay to see current and past entries.

If you are interested in learning about wool, I highly recommend visiting SarafinaFiberArt.com and learning about sculptural needle felting, wet felting, 2D Wet and Needle felting through the many videos and workshops Sara provides. Then come and visit the shop in person or order supplies online if Elkton, MD is a bit too far for you to drive. You can even find some of my Marsha Neal Studio work in the Sarafina Art House Gallery and through the Artists link on their website.

Thanks for taking the time to read up about this process and enjoying art!

You can find my work through my Marsha Neal Studio Etsy shop and at some point, when I get organized better, my website!