Our visiting artist, Mallory Zondag, started today and it's been amazing to watch the students blossom under her guidance. We are constructing a living wall of fiber using wet felting techniques. Every student K-5 has the opportunity to add to the collective 6 foot square background. Grades 5, 4 & 3 are creating sheets of felt that will be needle felted on top of the background while 2nd, 1st and kindergarten are creating cords that will be used as textural embellishments.
For the flat pieces the students tear and place five thin layers of wool roving, alternating the layers as they stack them on their mat. The mat is a piece of pool covering but you could use a sushi mat or bubble wrap.
A mesh screen is placed over the five layers and then the warm soapy water is used to scrub over the entire pile. We used an olive oil based soap.
Next, they remove the screen and roll over top of the felt with a pool noodle wrapped in the other end of their mat. They agitate for about two minutes. Then we added five more layers to the pile and repeat. They could change color if desired.
For the corded pieces, students received about a yard of roving to wrap around their palm several times. They dunked their hand in the soapy water and rubbed their hands together to agitate. They needed to rotate the wool around the hand so that it was evenly felted. After a few rotations they had to unwrap the cord and squeegee off the excess soap.
We store the kits by rolling the mats around the pool noodles, stuffing the screen in the open hole of the noodle and securing with a rubber band.
Here is their progress so far:
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