Project 2 Developing Your Marks - Stage 4

Preparing to Create Textures

I think I might've got a bit carried away on this one.  Once I'd picked out all my drawings and chosen all my fabrics and threads it felt like a bit of a waste not to do the stitching.  So I fannied about for quite a while making up several stitched samples when I didn't really need to!

This was a sort of a collage-y, painted picture that turned into a layered, embroidered, beaded thing.

I used a crumpled sheer sewn on to the background with running stitch and then apliqued a black felt fish tale, I used tiny white seed beads to recreate the fishes spots.

I used blue and green embroidery thread couched down to try and recreate the textures from some of the snakey samples.

I made this picture based on the skin of a Parrot fish, it was a background of watercolour, coloured on top with red oil pastel and then enhanced with some Pearlex powder to try and give it a metallic sheen.  When it came to the textile interpretation I had two different ideas and so I decided to try both of them out together.  First of all I wanted to try and make a very matt background which I did with this very open weave green hessian stitched on to a green cotton background, and then to use the red polyester sheer on top to bring some shine into it, I tried to couch down a thin strand of the sheer with green thread to create the red spots, I also tried just stitching down a flat piece.  I think the couched 'ribbon' works much better.  On the right I wanted to try out a beautiful metallic green sari fabric that I've had knocking about for years, I tried recreating the red patches with both felt and using embroidery floss in Satin stitch, both of which I though would help tone down the shininess a bit. I overstitched the whole lot with a matt green thread in running stitch to try and cut back on more shine.  For me I think the rough hessian and the couched sheer have worked out the best and this is an approach I think I will use again.

Inspired by the texture of this flower in a magazine photo of a bee, I made a little accordian booklet of different mark making techniques that could be used to recreate it, they included - bleaching, wax resist, water colour pencils and markers.  I then finished off the book with this little sample with different approaches to creating the flower in stitch, I tried out making an eyelet, French knots and big chunky cross stitch in a tapestry wool, also sewing down white seed beads and white sequins with a thin orange thread.

I enjoyed this exercise and am glad that I took the extra time to do some more stitching, if only because it helped me to feel a bit more comfortable with the stitches and also with the whole ritual of sitting down and sewing.