Embroidered Collage

  Apparently my little bird is something of an owl, or at least that's what it looks like with the large eyes.  Otherwise, I followed my original sketch pretty closely, using beads for emphasis and adding a little bit of metallics for extra feathering. 

Now I just need to sew on the bird and wrap the canvas.  And figure out what project I'll work on after this one...

Before I could start the stitching I needed to alter the coloring on the background from the simple paint and collage version in my last post.

I used ink pads, just stamping the full squares into the canvas with an uneven pressure so the whole rectangle was not printed.  I also used a few bits of print blocks I'd carved for other projects.  I thought it looked great.  A few days later I tried to use matte varnish to seal everything in and the pigment ink started running!  Aaargh.  So all the colors ended up blended a bit more than I intended.  Next time I need to either wait longer, use a spray fixative, or find a spray acrylic.  I was still pleased with result, but I liked it better the other way.

I started the stitching by outlining the tree shape, because that was the part I was most certain I wanted in the piece.  I had originally been thinking of a pale beige, but with the reduction in value contrasts caused by putting on the varnish I went even lighter, to an off-white.  I had also been thinking of whipping the back-stitch, but decided I liked it the way it was.

For the leafy bits I wanted to pull out some of the bright green that I started with.  I picked feather stitch for its organic look and the ability to twist and turn a bit, similar to the tendrils in Marissa's printed papers.  At first I only did the lengths on the left and the one on the bottom right - and then my mind blanked, even though I still had time to stitch that evening.  I thought that might be all I needed, but it bothered me that there was no greenery in the upper right.

A couple nights later, when I had time to stitch again, I knew where I wanted to put the stitching.  Instead of one long strand I'd do two shorter ones.  The grassy bits at the bottom were a last minute addition.  I'm not sure they'll show up much when I actually wrap the canvas.  We'll see.

I had considered stitching additional squares of windows in a dark outline, but decided that I wanted to emphasize the greenery portion and have the city effect be in the background.  I also considered adding some great flat beads I had in similar colors to the background, but decided that only having beads on the bird would be more effective in drawing attention to it as the focal point.

See the previous post on this work in progress.

The butterflies were made for a chunky pages swap and by the end I remembered why I had stopped doing these swaps.  I become tired of doing the same thing.  But that was also the very reason I joined this one - to push myself to make variations by giving myself a deadline and a purpose.  I definitely came up with some combinations for wing patterning that didn't initially occur to me.  The last four butterflies are shown below.

The thick wool felt I used as a stitching base is very easy to stitch through and gives these butterflies a bit of extra dimension.  I actually purchased it as a base for needlefelting, but I like it in this application as well.  I limited my floss colors to a handful and my bead selection to one mixed bag so I could concentrate more on varying pattern from one butterfly to another.  It's interesting to see how much I can pack into a small space.  I'm over half way done now...

When I've created compositions with strata-like layers I often don't vary the widths of the layers too much.  These two collages were created with the intent to push that aspect of the composition a little bit. I love the handmade papers and the variations in texture I can get with them alone, before I even add the stitching.

As I considered what to do with the painted sheet I realized that it looked something like a landscape with a red sky.  I had used cretan stitch to good effect in a previous landscape and thought it would work well here.  I only wanted to use one stitch, since, at least for now, putting in a restriction seems to give me better results.  Instead I varied the colors and thicknesses of the silk threads I used. 

I mostly chose thread colors based on the paint underneath, but deliberately tried to be a little off so the stitching would show up.  At the bottom I put in some extra browns to emphasize the earth of the landscape.  I also tried to use cooler and lighter colors farther away to get some of the atmospheric perspective that also makes the brain register landscape.  One of the reasons I chose that darker, thicker brown in the bottom left was to extend the value range. I didn't think this out logically step by step as I was stitching.  The concepts would drift to the top of my brain as I was selecting the next bit to add and I'd use them in a more improvisational manner.

I love this piece.  I look at it and think I couldn't have done less or more to it and that this is the kind of effect I was hoping for when I started embroidering watercolors.  Now if I could just figure out why that is, so I can extrapolate into future works...