Portrait flat needle felting

This is a needle felted project I made for my sister-in-law of her cat after her multiple requests. Took me a long time, I kept having to put it down for days and come back with fresh eyes.

For not being a trained artist, I think it came out pretty well.

It always surprises me how you have to mix the colors. For example I started out with the eyes the exact shade of pale green as his, but that of course came out too flat. The trick of "Painting" portraits is to portray all of the lights and shadows. So I did the eyes with an layer of the pale green and then used the greenest blue I had for the eye's shadows, and a golden yellow for the eye's highlights.

My Ipad was a very useful tool in making this, as I could load the photo onto it and zoom in quite easily to see all off the shades, and colors.

The whiskers were just some loosely plied white 2 ply wool from Norway. I over twisted the yarn and then felted it down. Without the extra twist the yarn just kind of fell apart. Even with loose (top, roving) wool I find that it is best to give it some twist with your hands before felting it down when you are making thin lines.

I am going to leave this as it is for right now. I realize that it is a little creepy with just the head, but how to make the area under the chin is eluding me right now. Maybe I just need to put it down and come back with some fresh eyes. So far the cat's owners are very happy with the result, so that is a win.