Felt making is an extremely versatile art allowing artists to create flat and 3D sculptures. Many artists choose to dye their own yarn to create truly bespoke and unique pieces of art. Our own Felt Melting courses are gaining popularity, perhaps suggesting that this ancient art form is making a comeback.
To inspire new and existing students we’ve put together a fantastic list of our favourite top 10 contemporary felt artists that we believe you HAVE to follow.
Before we dive in, please remember to check out the other blogs from our ‘Artists to Follow’ serious, including:
10 Contemporary Felt Artists to Follow
1. Ed Mironiuk
Buffalo born artist, Ed Mironiuk began drawing at an early age. After graduating from Parson’s School of Design with a Fine Art degree he worked as an animator. Ed and his wife, Kristin Tercek later founded Cha-Pow! an animation ink and paint company. Their work has been featured on hit TV shows including MTV, Nickelodeon, and Saturday Night Live.
As a well-versed artist, Ed recently – and rather successfully – switched to the medium of Felt. Today, he creates beautiful, characterful creatures and sculptures inspired by his love of comics and cheesy drive-in movies, in a bid to make the world a ‘happier place’.
2. Marjolein Dallinga
Marjolein Dallinga aka Bloom Felt, trained in graphic arts and painting at Minerva Academy, a fine arts institute in Groningen Holland, where she was born. After taking a course in working with wool, she fell in love with felting because of the unlimited freedom it provides. Having worked with the Cirque du Soleil, Marjolein now works to commission and concentrates on producing highly theatrical pieces for exhibitions and wearable pieces.
Follow Bloom Felt
3. Elizabeth Armstrong
Also known as Studio Felter, artist Elizabeth Armstrong creates vibrant and often abstract pieces, sold on her Etsy shop along with Ceramics and Watercolours. Based in the Australia, Elizabeth is clearly inspired by colours and nature and has a unique way of demonstrating her love of working with a range of media.
4. Terumi Ohta
Artist Terumi Ohta, aka True Style Lab creates ultra realistic animal wool sculptures. Her goal is to create the most life-like creations to delight her clients, meticulous to the smallest detail, and it’s safe to say, she does just that! The life-like nature of her work is achieved by mixing her own colours of wool to create the elaborate textures of the skin and fur to the eyes, the nails and claws, the teeth and the nose, all of which are made from clay.
5. Lindsey Thomas
Lindsey Thomas makes needle felted animals and greeting cards. Every single one of her animal creations provides a playful and imaginative insight into her animal underworld. Many of her animals can be spotted riding bikes, attending birthday parties and wearing fabulous costumes. A fabulous mix of humour, detail and felt artistry.
Needle Felting Course for Beginners
Discover how to create your very own collection of 3D felted sculptures in this brand new Needle Felting course.
Join artist Ruth Clayton in this wonderful online course as she takes you through the basics of Needle Felting. Comprised of 8 individual lessons, you’ll learn about the different materials required, how to make an armature, and how to sculpt a variety of different characters.
6. Nastasya Shuljak
Stowaways Toys Is the brainchild of Moscow-based Felt artist, Nastasya Shuljak. Her contemporary felt creations are adorable and have a fantastic natural quality about them. We just love them! We don’t know an awful lot about this artist but her Etsy profile reads, “All the creations that you see in the store are made by me. I work with sheep’s wool in the painstaking technique of needle and wet felting. I love my job very much. And I am absolutely happy when you choose my little guys for your homes.”
7. Erin Gardner
Erin Gardner is the owner, designer, and maker behind Grey Fox Felting. Having enjoyed needle felting for several years she realised there was potential to share the craft by offering beginner felting kits and a selection of quality materials to other makers wanting to learn the art of needle felting. She now offers workshops in New York, her own line of felting kits and handcrafted needle felted sculptures.
8. Cat Rabbit
Step into the highly imaginative world of Melbourne based textile artist, Cat Rabbit. Her range of plush works are often felted and entirely handmade making each one unique. Her pieces which include croissant characters and reading wombats really capture the creative and fun-loving approach to her work.
9. Wools Symphony
Eugenya is the artist behind Wools Symphony. Based in Russia, she creates these amazing miniature wool paintings which are sold as brooches and hoop art. What’s more impressive is that each little masterpiece contains an insane amount of detail and colour.
10. Andrea Love
Andrea Love is an independent filmmaker, animator and felt artist. She is best known for her short felt films where her felty creations come to life. The Washington-based artist works from her basement studio crafting both client-commissioned and personal work to create real stories with real puppets.
7 Comments
Exquisite. Great artists all of you. Such original creativity. If only the ‘Arts’ spotlight would shine at you.
Any chance you could put more contemporary wet felting in these. There seems to be mostly need felting 3-D.
Hi Pamela. What a great idea. We’re always on the look out for new/great artists so we will definitely up date.
Thanks, Sarah
I know an amazing upcoming Needle Felting Artist. Hope you will take a look and feature him if possible.
Thank you
Hi Marilee. Feel free to send details to sarah@sofst.org.
Many thanks
These are cute and beautiful, although it says stuff like you have to follow them, I have reasons that I cannot do that. First, I’m only on here for schoolwork and secondly, I’m only 10 years old and don’t have any Instagram, Facebook or Twitter accounts.
Thank you for your comment. You don’t have to follow them on social media, instead you can just research them online. Good luck with you schoolwork.