Embroidered Collage

For the bolder, stylized design I wanted to use bold stitches.  So I started with cross-stitches in #5 perle silk across the top of the wings.  As a size reference, from the tip of one wing to the other is about five inches.  Then I continued the primarily one-stitch theme to other portions of the design.  The stitches at the outer edges of the lower wings blend in a little more than I would have liked because the colors match more closely than I had originally intended.  I thought about redoing them, but decided that the overall result was good.

I used the cross-stitches to add pattern and to blur shape.  I added a couple of lines as well.  I could have just emphasized the lines already there with stitch, but that just isn't what I want.  I want the stitching in my mixed-media embroidery to obviously be there for a reason, contributing to the composition.  Following drawn lines might have been a nice accenting touch, but it doesn't place the technique into prominence. 

I didn't like the final composition in relation to the rectangular piece of paper it was painted on.  So I chopped it up with the intention of using the stitched butterfly as a piece in a larger collage at some point in the future.  I actually did this the other two butterflies as well, as you'll see when I finish the stitching on them.

I received tube watercolor paints for Christmas, a small Winsor and Newton Cotman set.  The tubes are so TINY compare to what I'm used to with acrylics.  So I had to play with them. 

It really is a different experience from the pans and the crayons.  Somehow mixing colors is more natural when squeezing out little dabs of paint than when using pans.  I also tried some lifting out of paint, both with brush and paper towel, which are where some of the lighter areas came from.  I thought the resulting 9x12 sheet was really pretty neat, but ended up cutting it down to two 5x7 sheets to achieve better compositions.

  My favorite part of watercolor is the way it flows, so I wanted to make use of that effect in adding color to the sketches, but not the same for all of them. 

For the butterfly wing I wanted the color to spread wildly, so I worked primarily wet in wet from my pan watercolors.  I used the pans again, but with less water on the first sketch to get a more overlapping effect.

In contrast, I colored within the lines on the purple butterfly using watercolor crayons to make it easier to keep the flow to a minimum.  It seemed an appropriate approach to the more stylized design.  However, the end results on the purple and the rust butterflies were closer in appearance than I had expected.

Next step is, of course, stitching.

I started with lines on the first set of sketches, so I thought I'd also try the other way and start with color, building up shapes instead.  That would give me a different set of options when I reached the stitching stage, since there wouldn't already be prominent lines in the image.  I did get the effect I wanted on the two paintings that I tried, but they're so faint.  I need to build up the color intensity further somehow before I consider adding linework or stitching.

  For my simplified version I started with a limited color scheme in watercolor crayons.  I loved the flowing effects that I got this time.  I'm not sure why, but some of the crayon colors seem to flow more than others when wetted.

For stitching I chose a whipped backstitch.  I started out with just backstitch but it didn't look right, so I used the same thread to smooth out the lines by whipping.  I kept it even simpler by just using floss and floche - a matte thread the same thickness of two strands of floss.

I think the composition on the atcs is a little weak, but I'm really happy with how the 5x7 turned out.  I think that the little pink circle focal point really makes the piece somehow.  The problem is that from even a little distance or at a smaller scale most of the stitching disappears when viewing the artwork.  The subtle effect could be useful in certain situations, but is not what I'll usually be going for.  I want the embroidery to show!

I thought I'd spend some more time this year working off of references.  The first sketch, to the left, was done directly from a photo in the Wetcanvas! image library.  I can see the tentativeness of the lines I made as I tried to reproduce the lines of the reference.  Part of the difficulty was that the angle of the photo wasn't directly on the wingspread, but slightly off so that the left wing should be foreshortened a bit, an aspect I didn't capture.  The second sketch to the left was an attempt to draw the same butterfly in a freer fashion. Instead it ended up distorted and child-like looking, at least to my eyes.

For a third try I decided to use an aid.  I sketched out guidelines with a pencil.  First, one across the wingspan, then a perpendicular one for the body, then diagonals for the remainder of the wings.  Then I picked up the pen again.  The result was more stylized, but appealing.  However, symmetry can be difficult.  If you're just a little off it can look wrong instead of interesting.  So I decided to try not worrying about it and just draw one wing to make the whole composition asymmetrical.

The concept worked out great.  I like the composition and enjoyed the drawing.  Unfortunately I felt I added one too many pattern lines to that first try.  Something about that feathered line bothers me.  So I tried it again.  I like this second attempt much better. 

Next I wil try adding color to a few of these sketches.

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.