Saturday, January 4, 2014

Happified Hat: Needle Felting Practice

Last year I had asked my mosaic artist friend Judy Sell to give me something wool to practice needle felting on. She gave me a blue hat. What should I put on it? She likes Lynda Barry, who is also from Judy's home state of Wisconsin. Just google her and you'll find articles like this. NYTimes photo by Colby Katz.
 I found these on her ETSY store. 

I thought this icy image of a penguin could work---with the circles going around the hat, penguin on top. Limited color palette. Yep. That's it.
BUT NOOOO! Using artwork without permission is WRONG so I abandoned that idea. 

I went to Judy's graphic design portfolio and saw this.

Here is her story of the symbol that she used to draw on her kids' lunch bags: 

"Years ago I worked up a little drawing to put on my kids notes from me. I thought a lot about what I wanted them to feel when they saw it. I call it HAPPIFIED. I started with a smiley-face and wanted those cute crescent- eyes and I wanted a kiss and a hug too. So little-by-little it developed into this little mark: HAPPIFIED. My daughter and I have it tattooed on our wrist. I LOVE IT!"

Perfect for the hat…it's roundish. I printed a rough pattern.
What colors? I knew the lips should be pink so I started with that. I had recently bought some wool fibers in great colors from Steven Be in Minneapolis. The store looks like a castle. Check out this video about the store. I started in the center and worked outward.
Adding white last.
Finis!