Embroidered Collage

Yesterday evening I wanted to pull out some paper or fabric and make imaginary landscapes that I could then develop further. But with my hands in my materials my brain froze.  Nothing felt like it was going to look right.  It would all just be too awkward.  So I sighed, put it all away, and went back down to my computer.

I pulled up flickr and found a random landscape group and started scrolling through until something caught my eye - and I drew it with watercolor crayons into a 4"x4" box on paper.  I didn't want details or even exact colors.  I just wanted shapes.  I don't think anyone could tell what photos I used, as I abstracted the image that far.  I did this four times.

And then I closed flickr and turned over that sheet of paper.  I kept in mind some of the fabric combinations and shape thoughts that I'd been playing with and started drawing again.  And what I had been doubting now looked like landscapes.  Weird ones sometimes, but not like completely non-objective abstracts, which I'd been trying to avoid. 

Basically, I took a step back in media to reassure myself that I can do this - I can interpret these ideas into the materials I want to use.  I refused to let myself be frozen by my doubt.  If necessary I would have spent a great deal more time working abstracts off of reference photos to get to this point, since intellectually I knew it was possible.  I still would like to make multiple smaller pen sketches of shapes from real photos.  I think that the division of space was more sophisticated and subtle in nature's versions than my imaginary versions and I would like to embed that deeper in my brain.

I'm ready to try again to use the real materials once I have another block of time, but thought I'd share my little mental trip, since I know many people have that "it's not going to work, why start and maybe waste my time" moment.  This was definitely not my first!  Sometimes stepping back and doing even a minimum of sketchbook work really does make a difference.