Description
Sat 30 Aug
Sat 10am – 4pm
Join us for a meditative day making needle felted corals with world-renowned textile artist and doll maker Johanna Flanagan, aka The Pale Rook.
Together, we’ll dive into the strange and beautiful world of marine life, exploring the organic forms and textures of coral reefs. From delicate branching corals to bulbous brain corals and intricate sea anemones, you’ll create your own vibrant undersea-inspired sculptures using needle felting techniques. You’ll learn how to sculpt three-dimensional forms in wool, build around a wire armature, and add rich surface detail and texture to bring your corals to life.
Felting is the oldest textile construction method in human history, used for millennia in building, clothing, homeware, and sculpture across cultures. In this workshop, we’ll explore its potential for creating dynamic, three-dimensional marine-inspired forms. We’ll begin with simple shapes and gradually develop more elaborate structures and embellishments to complete your one-of-a-kind felted coral piece.
No previous textile or felting experience is necessary, and all equipment and materials are provided. Please bring a cushion, blanket, or towel to rest your felting pad on as you work—this will also help support your wrists or arms if you have any mobility issues.
Throughout the workshop, we will use ethically sourced sheep’s wool. Leather finger guards are commonly used in felting, and while we will provide a vegan alternative to the leather guards, please note that we are unable to offer a vegan alternative to the wool itself.
About Your Tutor
Johanna Flanagan is a Scottish doll maker, costumiere and teacher. She studied Constructed Textiles at Duncan of Jordanstone college, then an MA in Fashion at the Royal College of Art. Throughout a career that meandered from catwalk, to film, to theatre, to historical costuming, Johanna always made dolls in secret, never really taking them seriously until her mid thirties when she decided to bring them out of the shadows.
Johanna’s work is heavily influenced by the natural world, themes of decay and restoration, and is a deeply personal reflection of her own emotional world. Her design approach is often led by intuition and an instinctive response to materials and subject matter.
Johanna continues to work internationally in collaboration with fashion designers, artists, dancers and performers. She has been teaching and lecturing in colleges, art schools and museums for fourteen years, as well as teaching independently.
Artists portrait courtesy of Jannica Honey Photography
Testimonials
“Johanna really helps free you of pre conceived ideas of how to create. I found it extremely liberating.”
“This is what happens when you go on a Pale Rook doll making course. You shake loose and create from your soul.”
“I had in my head what I wanted to create and Johanna gently coaxed it out of me and enabled the process of bringing him into being. He’s a very personal creation, he’s mine”
- All tools and materials needed for your Needle Felted Succulents workshop are included in the course cost
- Tea and coffee are provided but participants should bring their own lunch and utensils
- All of our classes are suitable for over 16s, younger crafters may be accommodated if accompanied by a participating adult but please contact us before booking
- If the workshop you were looking at is fully booked drop us an email and we’ll add you to the waiting list. As restrictions ease we might be able to add more spaces to some of our courses. We will add extra dates to our most popular workshops too, join the mailing list to be the first to know
