This tutorial began as a thought while I was working on “Coral Coast” in the summer of 2019, which sold that fall. I hadn’t initially planned on creating a tutorial, but it occurred to me that those who have admired or were inspired by my artwork wanted to know how to create art more like my large art projects. I already had my camera with me to take work-in-progress photos, so I thought why not? It was still early enough in the project that I started documenting how I created each coral. Out of all the corals I created for my piece, most of them are here - only a few were not documented. Once you are done working through the tutorial, you’ll probably be able to figure out any of the ones I’d missed.

It was also the beginning of what became months of deliberation over my own personal direction. Star Magnolias had grown largely thanks to my beginner needle felting guides and my beginner kits. Whimsy Houses was extremely popular, and the tutorial is still available for purchase in the shop. Nowadays, there are a number of wonderful beginner books and projects available on the market compared to when I posted my first guides and tutorial. When people would ask me how to create more complicated art or tips on more advanced techniques, I realized that there was a need for a different type of tutorial, one that could help more advanced needle felters take their art to the next level. There are so many more techniques that one can learn after the basics.

If you had worked through any of my previous tutorials, this one is different. First, there are no videos this time. Second, this more of a reference guide than a tutorial for a project. Instead of walking you through a process of recreating an artwork step by step, I show you how to make 18 different corals (more if you consider the variations I included on some). My goal is to not only to teach you how to make specific things (in this case corals), but also to inspire a new way to approach needle felting. Once you start exploring wool in it’s natural state rather than processed into batting or roving, you’ll start to see the things you can do with needle felting that you cannot do with any other medium - including other forms of felting.

I hope you enjoy creating these corals as much as I did.

Happy Felting!
- Magi Kern