Embroidered Collage

I made my first attempt at expanding the banded abstracts of the strata I'd been working with on a small scale into stitched works.  The watercolor part turned out great, but I didn't like the stitching as much.

I used watercolor crayons on a 9x12 sheet and really played with pushing the color around when I added water, so developed some interesting effects.  I hadn't been able to get wash effects using crayons before.  I just needed more water and time.  The result is shown to the left.

Then I cut the piece up to create backgrounds for a handful of art cards and a 5x7 picture.  I didn't have a plan for stitching for any of them. I just pulled out some silk threads that I had available and improvised.  I primarily thought about extending color into other areas using stitch.

While the results aren't bad, I think I needed a little more planning.  On the 5"x7" piece, the random stitch selection pulled the piece apart.  And I just wasn't able to control the needlelace stitch - in yellow off the red buttonhole stitch.  It ended up being a loose mess.  The patterns on the art cards are interesting, but not the best compositions I could have chosen.

Overall, I was pleased with my experiment, but decided to narrow down my options for my next trial to try to achieve a little more unity in the finished work.