Carried away with myself

Last night I re-read my post from yesterday and realized I REALLY got carried away with myself. My excitement about my workroom pushed me over the top and I posted WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too long a post. Sorry *^0^*

I think I'll break the next one into two posts so it isn't so completely overwhelming. Not everyone is as excited as I am that I have my very own room.

To make up for my over enthusiasm I am holding a small contest. No prize except getting to help me figure out which weird piece I'm going to stitch next - when I finish my vortex.

I've narrowed it down to three choices. I think I know which one I'd like to do, but I'm asking for input. Here they are in no particular order ---

I'll keep the contest open until my birthday - October 17. Then I'll announce the winner. And maybe I'll offer a prize after all. How does a copy of the chart I make of the winning design sound?

I'll think about it. Read more!

My newest madness

I finally finished the piece the mountains went on (remember waaaaaaaaaaaay back when I showed my mountains?). This is my newest 4-day andvanced class and, some would say, my newest insanity. When I showed it at our EGA chapter meeting Monday I got some comments along the lines of, "Do you stay awake nights thinking this stuff up?" and "Where do you come up with this stuff?" Oh, and my favorite, "You have got to be kidding."

This is sort of - but not really - a continuation of the series fo Walks I began in 2003 with City Walk. It is more closely related to Walk on the Wild Side than the original 3 walks, and is a transition into my next piece, but it still speaks to the notion of working in a series. Once an idea takes hold it is, to quote Jan Beaney, almost impossible to thoroughly explore the idea in a single piece. Hence a series.  The earlier pieces in a series often don't resemble the later pieces at all, but when viewed together in order the progression is usually apparent. And it is always apparent to the artist who is exploring the idea.

So here, for your enjoyment (or not ;-) is Walk the Wild River.

Read more!

Designing Experiments

The arrangement of shapes I like the best, of all the ones that came from playing with my flame shape is this one (from my sketchbook)

I can see this in so many ways. I love the idea of using the shapes to overlay transparencies and textures. This particular drawing is more likely to become an actual piece than the two illustrated in the last posting. It just has so many possibilities and I am totally taken with the flow of the lines.

This is how a series is often born. One idea sparks a host of others. It's much like brainstorming. Not all the ideas make it to completion, but many of them do, often in an attempt to work out the various possibilities. It is a more natural organic way to create a series than deliberately setting out to create one. One idea flowing into another one often yields more exciting designs than sitting down and deciding, "I'm going to create three projects that are related by . . . [insert whatever here - color, shape, a particular thread]. Read more!

Designing Experiments

After I had painted a facsimile of the collage I did in class I started tweaking the shape and thinking about how I could use the shapes in a project. I was getting proposals ready for a seminar whose theme is "A Touch of Glass" and the idea of using the design in some sort of project resulted in this general idea (from my sketchbook).

I liked the idea but it hasn't gone anywhere yet. It might never. It would be a good chance for me to experiment with painting or printing on canvas. It might also be a fun idea for a multi-layered project, colored sections layered over a black background to simulate stained glass.

Another thought was to use the flames to fill in a specific shape with couching all around them.

This is just a rough sketch of the possibilities. Again, it hasn't gone anywhere and might never. But it has been fun to speculate. Maybe place the flames all around the outside of an open center, much like a picture frame. Maybe an actual picture frame. Hmmmmmmmmm. Read more!

Designing Experiments

I took a wonderful color theory class from Shirley Kay Wolfersperger at EGA National Seminar in San Francisco in Spetember 2010. I don't often get to go to seminar and take classes so it was a great opportunity. Plus I've always wanted to take a class from Shirley Kay. She has taken her needlework into the arena of art and continues to push the envelope of needlework possibilities. I've posted a link to her blog in the blogs I follow and if you are interested in learning more about her that is a good place to start.

Anyway, back to the class. We had a wonderful week of playing with color schemes by making little mini-collages.

This is one I did in class with colored appers and pencils. It really took my fancy and when I got home I started playing with the colors and shapes. I've started calling them flames. So this is flame exercise 1.

I was so excited about the shapes and the flow I got out my sketch book and paints and began playing more with the shape.

Read more!

My new design

This is the second attachment with more mountains and rivers.

The same type of threads. On the first diamond I auditioned colors until I liked the combination I had. On the second diamond I just took those color families and added a couple of shades rather than adding more colors. For a class I need to keep the number of colors and threads manageable to keep the cost of the kit reasonable.
Walk on the Wild Side is one example of where I let myself use what needed to be used regardless of the cost. Full retail on the kit would price it right out of the market so I only charge ~75% of full retail. For Walk the Wild River, this new design, I am trying to be more sensible. But it's soooooooooooooooooo hard.
 
Someday I am going to stitch something just for me - no class, not for saile, just for ME. Someday. Soon. I hope. Read more!

My new design

Here is the first attached piece that will go on top of the main body of Walk the Wild River. These are  - TA DA - mountains and rivers of course.

Kreinik #4, perle coton #8, cotton floss, and a thread called Razzle that I found in a quilting store. Kind of a pain to work with, but I like the effect.

I'm trying to get a nice variety of blues, purples, and greens for the mountains and blues for the rivers. Eventually I hope to couch a fuzzy thread of some sort over the fly stitch rivers and have it pass from the attached diamonds down onto the main body of the design. But I don't know how that will work or IF that will work until I get to that stage. Read more!

My new design

I have started working on my newest four-day advanced class design. It is called Walk the Wild River -- I know, I know -- what is with all the walks. I sincerely don't know. That just seems to be the series I am on right now.

This particular piece was inspired by where I live. There are rivers, mountains, lots of gardens, plus buildings and high rises. Probably reminiscent of many cities where rivers play a major part in the life of the city.

This piece will be layered, similarly to Walk on the Wild Side. Probably not as complex in the layering, but definitely complex in the stitches and techniques.

This is the main piece of canvas showing the preworked satin stitch dividing bands (seem to be a feature of all my walks so far) and the basting that defines the rivers. The main body (the square part) is about 12.4 square on 18-count canvas.

I'm stitching the model on green, and I will probably also offer blue canvas. I don't know yet about a third color. I'm thinking about a brown of some sort, but everyone who knows me knows brown is soooooooo not my color. It is always harder for me to come up with a color scheme for brown. Read more!

My "Walk" series

Working in a series sometimes happens accidentally. When I designed my first Walk - City Walk - I wasn't thinking of a series at all. I was thinking of creating a piece that would be good enough to get me a contract to teach for ANG. The piece was very popular so I started looking at what made it popular.

Working along the same creative lines of City Walk I came up with Garden Walk. This has the same shape and size as City Walk, and it has the same number of sections, but they are arranged differently so it is the same yet different. Again the piece was very popular. So my brain started along the same lines of thought. But it was much harder to come up with another piece with the same shape and sizes of sections.

So I asked myself the famous (or infamous) artist question - "What if . . ." I began doodling with the layout of my previous two Walks, playing with the arrangement and number and size of sections. God Bless computers. This would have been a pain in the bum without one. The result was the third piece in what has come to be known as the Walk series - Beach Walk.

More next time about how my Walk goes astray. ;-0 Read more!

A sketchbook's place in a series

When I do start getting ideas for works related to what I am currently working on, or even something I have completed, the ideas often come too fast for me to implement them as I get them. After all, hand needlework is not a fast medium. This is where my sketchbook comes in handy.

I am not a fast drawer. I can draw realistically but it takes me FOREVER!!!!!!!! So my sketchbooks are not art in their own right, as many artists' are. They are records of ideas, enough information for me to remember, in 5 months or 2 years, what the idea was. They are as much words as they are sketches. I record the idea, the date, sketch whatever bits and pieces I need to make the idea clear. I write colors or effects I want to achieve. I always record whatever the inspiration was. If possible I glue a picture of the inspiration into the book. Some of the ideas are worked out in fair detail complete with color (I usually use colored pencil, maybe a bit of watercolor pencil). But most of the ideas are in plain pencil with lots of notes.

I often go back through these sketchbooks, looking at old ideas, adding thoughts to them, filling in the sketches a bit more. And, when I have time and if the idea still strikes me as a good one, I will take an idea from a sketchbook and create it in thread.

By using sketchbooks in this way I don't lose that idea for another step in the series. And I am not as pressured to create it immediately. I have time to look over the idea, think it through, decide if it really is another step I want to take in the series. Read more!

A Planned Series

Most of the time I find myself working in series because I couldn't try all the what ifs in one piece of work. Or the work itself brought up a lot of those what ifs and I needed to explore them. But I have on occasion deliberately created a series.

One I'm working on right now is my Fruits of the Spirit angels. In order to not make the series contrived or stiff I've been working on it over a period of time, not forcing the designing, which is what often makes a piece not work. The first angel — Love — was created in 2002 and over the next year I create 2 more — Peace and Faithfulness. Then I got side-tracked as my teaching career took off and didn't seem to have the time or inclination to do any more. About a year ago I was trying to think of a quick project to do to balance the larger projects I was working on when the Fruits popped back into my head. Within a day I had designed the next angel — Joy — and I stitched it over a weekend retreat.

So a planned series can be very successful if the artist restrains herself and lets the work come naturally. Unfortunately this restrained attitude can be short circuited by the demands of a gallery showing or exhibit or deadlines associated with teaching a class. It is often a fine balance between meeting these deadlines and being true to the integrity of the design. Read more!

Is it easier to work in a series?

Artists often work in series. This means the artist creates pieces that are related in some way. It could be the theme, the size, the materials, specific colors, or specific techniques.

When an artist creates a work the process oftens (dare I say usually) brings up many what if issues — what if I used a different color, what if I used this stitch instead of that stitch, what if I turned it on its side, what if I made it larger or smaller or a different shape. The what if question is what keeps artists moving forward, tweaking, changing, growing, learning. For most of us, the what if question is a compulsion. A driving force that leads us from one work to the next.

There is often no way to put all the answers to what if into one work. It would be overwhelmingly busy, fussy, disjointed, crowded. The logical result is create another work to explore what if. This results in a series of works.

Working in a series isn't always something that is planned ahead of time unless the artist knows the issue she is exploring is too expansive to be covered in one piece. Sometimes the knowledge that a series is the direction to go happens over the course of time, as the artist addresses these different what if issues. Sometimes it hits rather like a bolt of lightning that this work needs further exploring. And sometimes it is planned.

So sometimes it is easier to work in series because there is no other way to explore an issue fully. In my opinion, though, working in series should never be forced. It would seem contrived, overworked, stilted, forced. So working in series because the artist thinks she should work in series would probably be harder than just creating a piece and then moving on. Read more!