Category: process

elm leaf, sycamore leaf

November 8, 2011

elm and sycamore leaves

I'm making a set of pages for each of a series of trees. You've already seen some of the pages for oak, these are leaf prints for sycamore and elm. I think I am working from an individual tree for each set of pages. Each bunch of leaves came from a specific tree. 

I made a lovely discovery: after calling the set of pages the oak folio, I thought I should go look up folio and make sure I was using it correctly. To my delight, I was.  Wikipedia says a folio is a pamphlet or book made up of full sheets of paper folded in half, printed on each of the four pages that result. Folded sheets can be nested to make gathers, and the gathers can be stitched and bound as signatures.

Since I am working with full sheets of, well, sheet actually, and folding them in half and nesting them to make signatures, they really are folios. The pages are old sheets ripped to a reasonable size, and painted with accidentally colored gesso. 

the organizational scrimmage

October 26, 2011

preparations

I've gotten photographic reproductions from my local print shop.

Paradise Copies is right around the corner from me. They are kind of amazing. Every time I ask them if they can do something, they say yes, and it is cheaper and easier than I expected. This time I had to make reproductions, mount them on foam core and shrink wrap them. With a  short break in the middle of the process for me to make labels, sign them and attach them to the back of the mounted pieces. 

That process is well underway. The last piece is framing the big guys. Al says fall and winter should go, but that I should make more too, because he wants to see spring. 

more shrubberies, more thread

October 20, 2011

shrubberies redux

I have some reeds still on land, at the edge of the pond (you can see where I sketched in their shadows already) and then I get to work on the pond itself.

I was thinking about how snow sits on top of ice, and then melts into it a little, so that the top is quite white, but some places are black with ice. Places where people tossed rocks to see if it was thick enough to skate on, or sticks fell on it, or small creatures left small footprints, all those show up as divots with black at the bottom. What I have to begin with is four layers of silk organza dyed black, gray and white. The rock sits in the pond a little, so the ice has melted around it and refrozen. 

I'm still thinking about how to do this part. I may try something that is removable, if I feel very dubious. 

shadows on snow

October 18, 2011

shadows on snow

The needle issue was definitely tiredness. So was my temporary inability to think of anything else to do. Today I returned to the front to work on the pine trees and add some shadows around the bottoms of the trees. No needles were injured today. I am feeling much happier. 

what the back looks like

October 16, 2011

backs

What does the back look like and why do I care? 

The back generally looks like a thin, dark version of the front. All that bobbin thread, made visible against the plain white substrate. 

I look at the back for the same reason an artist might squinch their eyes, or look at a picture upside down or in a mirror. It works to check on the balance of the piece. From the back, I can see if the picture has unintended empty spaces or overly busy places. I can make sure I am working to the edges of the piece. It helps me check my work without the detail on the front distracting me. 

The only real problem with this check is when I am working from the back, using heavier decorative threads in the bobbin. Then I have to rely on mirrors to help me see compositional problems. 

pines with thread

October 15, 2011

pines with thread

Like a commenter said yesterday – do something every day, even if it is only five minutes. So I did five minutes, and got the pine trees textures and ready for green needles and some embroidering. 

We also got a LOT of glow sticks in packaging that included two hubs. The results were amusing, and produced a ball that works in the dark. So we instigated a spirited game of catch in the dark, followed by some glowsticks around the origami hanging off the ceiling. It looked like this: 

spinning glowstick ball

a little closer

October 14, 2011

larger bare trees

I thought I was too tired to work on this today, because I rode two horses. The big gray horse is back from his summer on the island, and needing riding on Fridays and random other days. So I had my lesson on Nuada, which was fun and different. 

But I am worried about finishing things in time, so I came up and started working on the tiny twiggy trees in the mid-background, and then worked on cutting out the larger bare trees, getting closer to the foreground. And when I checked my watch because I was really tired – it had been a couple hours, and it was completely reasonable to be tired. 

winter is icumen in

October 13, 2011

tiny pointy trees

Tiny pointy trees in the background. They are making me happy. Also, they feel cold… brrr. 

There are three layers of medium, muddy greens making up the trees, one hand dyed, one hand painted, and one commercial. The interesting thing is how the thread works to consolidate them – even though I used four different threads, singly and in pairs.  

water and reflections

October 10, 2011

water and reflections

Two layers of silk organza make the pond. The top layer is dyed all black, the underneath layer has a strip of blue across the bottom, to add some depth and imply sky reflections. 

I helped offload a wagon of hay into the barn, and I am coated with a fine layer of hay and horse dust, glued on with sweat. 

a layer of small trees

October 7, 2011

tiny naked trees

The next layer is more stitching. The saplings are stitched from the back using heavy thread in the bobbin. I can see what I'm stitching on the back of the piece, but it is still kind of magical to flip the piece over and find trees. You can see the edges of some more shrubbery (which always makes think of Monty Python) and the bottoms of some pine tree branches. This section is about 3×4" – the whole piece is 12×16" 

I broke two needles in three minutes so I stopped. I wear glasses, so I'm less worried about getting stabbed, but it makes me jump every time. My nerves can only take so much!