Once I had decided what form my piece would be. I could start working on my base figure. The human shape would be my base, the tree would be “build” around it later. Because I really wanted the tree and human to become one, I decided on a full body sculpt. In a strange way I wanted the legs to show through the tree trunk, but it still had to feel like a tree trunk. How? That was for later. For now I decided to focus on making my basic figure.
When I make my (human) soft sculptures I always start by making a wire frame. I make my frame against a print out of a skeleton, so I know I’ve got the proportions right. The frame gets then wrapped in strips off pre-felt. Pre-felt is a lightly
needle felted wool, that just holds it’s shape enough to cut strips from. Whilst wrapping I check for proportions again, but this time against a muscle chart. After I wrapped the whole frame I start needle felting the wool. This is quite a labour intensive process, I keep sculpting the wool with felting needles until I reach the body shape I want.
(I must admit that the pictures shown here are not of my “Weeping Willow” sculpture. I forgot to take pictures whilst I was working on her. The pictures shown here are of another sculpt I did, but I thought they would explain the process much better than I could ever put into words.)
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