Embroidered Collage

This 6"x6" piece started out as an answer to a challenge on the Landscape forum at Wetcanvas.  You can see the original picture at http://www.wetcanvas.com/RefLib/showphoto.php?photo=79322 .  I didn't bother to print out the reference when I started painting, just went with what I remembered and seemed to be working in relation to each other, so my colors ended up rather off from the reference.  It would have been interesting to have gone back in and tried to capture the muted haziness but I loved the blue that I used for the water too much.

I wanted to keep that blue smooth and present so instead of putting texture down there I decided to try and fluff up the clouds in the upper portion of the image.  The cheesecloth that had been dyed a light blue was perfect because the painted colors would still show through but it would unify the two areas. The darker section had been looking more like mountains than I really liked. 

I secured the cheesecloth in place with small tacking stitches on either side of what would become exposed sky - and then I cut the piece apart, letting the edges curl above and below the sky.  I also folded over sections in the upper cloud portion and tacked those down.  I had found in the past that controlling cheesecloth while glueing it could be difficult and wanted to make sure I achieved the effect I was after, but I knew I did want to glue down the cheesecloth because more of the painted area would show through than if I left it as loose fabric.

The sky was just too yellow, so I toned it down with a bit of colored pencil, then adhered some paper to serve as the land mass and added the one bead with rays to serve as a sun.  The hand-dyed ric rac had been in my stash for awhile.  I used two different colors and sizes to aim for a bit of depth.  Then I sat back and stared and had that "am I done yet?" moment.  I finally decided to put in a little extra stitching in the clouds, to increase the interest, and some beads in the ocean, both to balance the sun bead and to put in a touch of the idea of light bouncing off the water.  That last part makes more sense in natural light than it does in this photo.

Working directly from a reference image was fun, though it really was more of a starting point and less of a guide to where I actually went with the piece.  I'll have to do this again.