When I started to think about this exercise I thought it was meant to be based on an image from a well-known artist, so I spent some time looking through my books and thinking of how to represent textures. It was time well spent because when I re-read the instructions and realised I was to work from one of my own sketches I had a fairly good idea of what I was looking for. This is the image I chose:
When looked through the viewer became this:
And from here I decided the two most interesting areas to work from would be the little brick wall with the white flowers and the rose bushes/plant pot. But first I had to choose the colours and proportions which meant undertaking a mammouth task of tidying up my yarn stash... (that was a good by-product of this assignment). Then I placed yarn and ribbon by the sketch to see which ones would match the colours better.
I decided not to use buttons or bits of fabric cut outs. Instead I settled for yarn and ribbon in a rough hessian fabric. I dyed the hessian to emphasise the dominance of greens in this image and to provide a background to my chosen two areas of interest.
And here they are: the wall and the rosebushes.
There are a variety of stitches here, straight ones for the bushes, knots for the little flowers, long pieces of thick yarn couched for the log over the bricks, weave for a big round bush I made up, cross-stitch for sm roses, chain-stitch for the off leaf etc.
What have I achieved? Answers to the questions.
1. I do feel happy with the work. I've enjoyed doing it and thinking about it in the meantime. I found I don't like to discard ideas but it has to be done as otherwise I'd end up with a mess of cut out bits and pieces, ribbon, beads, buttons and everything from the box.
I experimented with 'metal embroidery' and made a sample of nuts, cable and other materials bought in the local DIY store. I didn't enjoy this. The work was hard and didn't look too good either. I guess I was expecting a uniform stitch of shinning metal and all I got was a very scratched and rough-skinned pair of hands... Still, another experience.
2. I see stitching as drawing with thread, yarn and fabric. I find both activities very much connected and this connection is becoming more and more obvious as I'm also dyeing my own yarn.
3. I find stitches to be the equivalent to brush or pencil strokes. Different stitches give different feelings and textures, not only that but also we have the distance between stitches, the direction and the patterns they create to express ourselves. The threads and yarns would be like the paint, again with different colours, textures, thicknesses etc...
4. I enjoyed looking through the sources of material to work from. I found a wealth of inspiration all around me, not only from the art books, but also from nature: plants and trees, animals, volcanoes, rocks, and the landscape around: buildings, roads, diverse objects - so many things. I think I chose a right variety of themes and I notice I tend to find most of my inspiration from nature - although I also worked from images of interesting buildings.
5. The two little samples work well as individual little yarn paintings. I noticed the process I went through when working on them is very similar to that I follow when painting. It gets to a point when the image I'm working from becomes incidental and the painting/embroidery takes a life on its own. It becomes a purpose in itself. For example, in the sketch there's a pretty shapeless bush behind the white flowers that 'wanted' to be palm shaped when I was stitching it... Things like that happen often when I'm sketching or painting. I do find difficult to faithfully reproduce anything. It's like I'm acting as a filter that colours and changes reality through my hands and body. I guess it would not be a human creation if I was to just copy it - it would lack soul.
Having said that I did try and be a little bit disciplined so that anyone looking at the embroidery and the sketch could see a relationship between the two little embroideries and the corresponding sections of the sketch.
6. At this particular moment I'm in love with yarn so I did prefer them for the texture creation. I've been abducted by fibres and yarns recently, I'm dyeing, carding, blending, spinning and knitting my own yarn, and very much looking forward to weaving it too. I'm experimenting with spinning different thicknesses and textures of yarn, single ply, two ply, merino, alpaca, silk, blue-faced leicester... so yes, Yarn (with a capital letter) is what inspires me right now.
7. I enjoyed trying different stitches. I would like to experiment more with colours but I guess that's the next chapter... I look forward to it. I did write some individual comments on the different pieces to accompany the pictures. I don't feel I've finished with experimenting with stitch and embroidery. In fact I don't think I'll ever feel I have 'completed' this process.
8. I can see the value of both ways of working, however I do find inspiration from the materials so I tend to start with an idea (either on my head or on paper) and then let it develop when I start seeing it taking form. I find this tends to produce more interesting results as there's an spontaneity that doesn't happen if I try to stick too strictly to an original plan.
9. There are many more techniques I'm looking forward to trying, like felting, weaving etc... as well as more embroidery stitches. I like to see the interplay with colours, different threads, fabrics, translucent effects, perhaps working with several bits of fabric and cutting bits off to show the fabric underneath, dyeing parts of it, adding beads, sequins, stones and bits from nature... all sorts of things. There are more ideas in my head that I've got time to sketch, let alone produce.
10. I would have liked my machine embroidery to work properly. For some reason it tends to break the thread very often. I tried adjusting tensions, bought different types of needle, used different fabrics, but to no avail, in the moment I tried free-hand embroidery the thread would break and got nowhere fast... perhaps I'll have to be a bit more creative with this and embroider using zigzag and plain stitch only... or get a new machine!
...and next comes Colour - I look forward to it.
