Painting on Felt
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This post was last edited/updated in March 2021.
Update 2021: I was surprised to see that this post is as popular as it is. Before you go any further, the short answer is that yes, it’s possible to paint on felt. If you’re considering using it to “color” your needle felted art instead of buying dyed wool, I would not choose painting as a medium, though that depends on application and the effect you’re going for. If anything, I would suggest buying some alcohol markers, and trying that instead. They don’t need to be fancy copics for this. My daughter has this set, and I think they’re great quality, and cheaper than sharpies (which are also technically alcohol markers) if we’re going for variety of color. Alcohol markers will stain the fiber similarly to dye, whereas paint just sits on top. In fact, an example of alcohol markers on wool can be seen in my needle felted feathers tutorial. I wouldn’t use it for lettering or any super fine details, because it’ll still be fuzzy, unless you plan on covering up any feathering on the edges with needle felt or embroidery. I personally still opt for needle felting for any detail work like lettering, or use embroidery instead. Felt is really fun to embroider. Now that I got all that out of the way, if you’re still interested in learning about the results of my experimentations with painting on felt in an art-journaling sort of way (which is what I was doing with these felt journaling posts - experimentation much as one might do with an art journal), read on!
The questions I was asking with this #feltjournaling piece was "can I paint on felt? And can I felt on it after it's been painted?"
But before we get into that, first things first. I wanted to talk about a readily available felt you can use with your felt journals if you're not too keen on making your own prefelt, and that would be this stuff:
I don't personally enjoy wet felting for a number of reasons, so I was eager to try some other options for a flat felt base that didn't involve wet felting while I continue my little mixed media experimentations. For this project, I tried out Dimensions 100% wool felt. This stuff is THICK. Like a quarter of an inch thick. Also, it's fairly cheap for the amount of wool it uses, especially if you buy them on sale, which is how I ended up with this one. While I absolutely do not recommend getting their roving, their 100% wool felt is fairly decent and quite handy. This may be borderline too thick to use in an embroidery-hoop mounted felt piece if you're looking for a wool painting base, but there are other ways to mount your work if you want to try using this.
There are now far more sources and options for 100% wool felt these days, or even wool blends, than when I first wrote this post. The Dimensions felt I mentioned above is still an option. If you like to shop on Amazon, I curated an idea list of needle felting supplies that I like (which has other needle felting stuff too) - there are wool felts on there, as well as an acrylic felt for the wool-free felters. I also recommend checking out The Felt Store over on Etsy, which specializes in felt and has 100% wool, wool blend, rayon and acrylic felts available, including patterned ones which look really fun to use.
Since my pages are about 11x11, this comes in the perfect size. I just trimmed off the excess so it can match the other pages I've been doing. Now, let's get painting.
For painting, I used a textile medium to mix in with my acrylic paints. I happen to have lots of Folk Art ones because I love the colors, and it's cheap to stock up on all the different colors as opposed to buying the artist-quality tubes. I've also found that they hold up really well, and I have a few things that have sat outside through two years' worth of seasons and still look as bright as the day I painted them. The textile medium I had on hand was Ceramcoat's, and though the directions specify using their brand of acrylics, I think any will do if that is what you have. You do want to pay attention to the ratio of how much medium you use with the acrylic paint. If you use more of the medium, your paint will become quite thin and soak into the material more, less and it'll remain brighter, though it'll leave a thick acrylic coating. If you're planning on trying to felt on top of it, I would recommend thinning it down to about 50/50.
The green at the bottom was using the recommended 1 part medium to 2 parts acrylic, and the white and aqua colors were 50/50. I needed to really lay it on thick in the square where I'm planning to write to get it that bright. The felt really started soaking up that paint quite a bit, but due to the thickness of the felt, none of it leaked to the back. Make sure you let it dry before working with it (I let it dry overnight). I really love the rough texture of the paint on the felt. Because of the way I'm using this, I was not worried about heat setting or any of that other stuff. If you choose to paint on anything you're going to wash/wear, make sure you follow the directions on the textile medium.
With this project, I also decided to try a new material. So far I've been playing around with needle felting with silk sarees, but I want to see what other materials I can use in my projects, so last weekend I headed over to Joann's fabric store and rummaged through their remnants bin. I love digging through the remnants bin, because you get 50% off of whatever the original fabric price was, and I'm much more likely to explore new materials instead of having to pick from the bolts and pay full price. It's just so hard to choose otherwise. The kids were so happy when I started unwrapping all the remnants at home, they were dancing with them all over the house (I had to keep reminding them to be gentle lest they all become a frayed mess)! This one is probably one of my favorites, and I just had to use it with this project:
The label on this one is Cosm Sparkle Mesh Red 58," with 68% polyester, 17% metallic and 15% nylon. Looking it up on Joann's fabrics, they have something that looks just like it called Sparkle Mesh, though on there it says 49% polyester, 36% metallic and 15% nylon. I'm going to assume it's the same material, and either the label or the website is wrong on the exact fiber makeup of this product. That doesn't matter, but this does:
You reach a point in your needle felting hobby/practice where you start looking at the world through this lens.
As a synthetic-fiber mesh, I wasn't sure if it would act like tulle, which is not really feltable (and why it's used to assist in wet felting or to help hold your work down when using an embellisher. Except this mesh worked really well! It attached quite nicely to the felt underneath without the use of any wool over top. I wonder if it's because the mesh is quite more open and loose than tulle. No matter, I stabbed at it and it stuck! The rest of the process was similar to what I had discussed in my previous felt journaling posts.
I used a silk sari in one of the hearts (you can read more about needle felting with silk here). Other hearts I just used wool (the dark purple and teal ones were ones I dyed at home). As you can see with the dark purple one, it felted onto the painted square just fine, despite the fact that I used several coats of paint in that area. I had no issue stabbing the needle through the painted surface. I also went over both the fabric and the wool with more paint, this time just using straight acrylic without any medium. I then outlined the hearts and the quote with my sewing machine set up to do free motion quilting, and sewed on the heart button for a finishing touch. The heart button is from Belle Buttons by Dritz (they have some really adorable buttons with dangly bits on them, even ones that look like sheep with little dangling legs).
Final thoughts: I don't believe that any fibers that are coated in paint will actually felt. Since needle felting entangles and punches the other fibers through, it won't have an issue of sticking in place, but I wouldn't consider it durable. How your final piece will be used is definitely something that needs to be considered. For strictly art/sculptural applications, I think painting on felt is worth giving a try - but be sure to spend some time experimenting on the color and fiber you want to paint, maybe a separate felted swatch, to see if you get the effect you’re going for.
"You are much deeper, much broader, much brighter than any idea you could have of yourself."
Have fun experimenting, and Happy Felting!
