Assignment 3: making a scarf

The instructions in the course notes were to “… choose a colour, mood or theme that both interests and inspires you; to dye yarns or materials based on that colour theme and to use them to design and make a scarf of some kind.”  So where to start?

My regular commute to work includes an environmentally friendly walk to the bus stop, bus ride, plus shorter walk to the building I’m based in, and then the reverse in the evening.  The route to the bus stop is through a residential area, and along at least one of the roads there are a number of well-established plane trees.  One morning when it had been raining I noticed that whereas the bark on these trees is usually made up of mid-browns, due to recent rainfall a whole range of wonderful colours and patterns had appeared.  Taking a photo was irresistible.

At that time I had no idea what I was going to do with the photo, I just loved the colours and texture it showed.  Now that I had my scarf to make I remembered the picture and decided that somehow it was what I wanted to use as the inspirational starting point for my piece.  I wanted to make something that was a one off, that was unique.  I wanted to incorporate similar rich colours, the irregular shapes and some texture as well.  I also decided that I wanted a scarf that was more decorative than functional, that acted in place of a piece of jewellery such as a large pendant.

Around this time I discovered that a colleague at work was regularly receiving post in Tyvek envelopes.  While the consistency wasn’t the same as the sheets of Tyvek I’d seen at exhibitions, nevertheless I got a bit excited (much to the bemusement of said colleague!) and asked if I could have the envelope if they didn’t want it to experiment with and see how it behaved in comparison with what I’d seen demonstrated.  The answer was yes, and I was delighted to find that the envelope did indeed distort in a similar fashion.

A couple more envelopes arrived, so I started to experiment, and painted pieces of them with paint similar to the colours of the tree.

The Tyvek is non-absobent, with a shiny rather waxy looking surface, so the paint took ages to dry and it does tend to flake off when you handle it, but I was only playing around so that didn’t matter.

Once dry I cut the pieces into shapes with curved edges rather like the shapes on the bark and stitched them back together to see how they would look.

I liked the result, but while I had texture and colour it wasn’t quite the right texture for this project, the pieces were still very ‘separate’ in appearance, and I wanted a slightly more blended look - plus this material wasn’t very practical for making an actual scarf to be worn!   It wasn’t soft enough to wrap nicely around a neck and drape down at the front.  However, it did lead me to conclude that while I wanted a soft scarf, I didn’t want either a light floaty one or an especially thick one – somewhere in the middle. I also wanted to create similar rich colours but ones that were still soft and not overly strong.  Previous experiments and sampling had taught me that silk fabric and the way that it takes coloured dyes and paints so well meant that it could be a good fabric to use.  So I rummaged in my stash to find what unpainted silk fabric I had.  I turned up some silk satin, silk dupion and some coned silk yarn I’d bought to use on my knitting machine, of which I knitted a quick sample using 2 strands (1 didn’t have enough body) to see how that looked.  Laying the three fabrics together I liked the idea of using different thicknesses of fabric which seemed in keeping with the layered and patchy look of the bark on the tree, helping to give a varying texture, but still soft enough for wrapping around the neck.  Now I needed to experiment with colour further.

First of all, as this scarf followed on from the previous dyeing assignment I needed to try out some dyeing/colouring experiments as my original fabrics were cream/neutral.

 

Next I tried colouring some pieces of the fabric with silk paints for comparison; I had used silk paints before and knew that they could produce lovely effects with vibrant colours.  Only a couple of the ‘starter kit’ paints I already had were suitable for this because I really wanted to emulate the bark colours and the kit colours were very primary so I’d have had to do masses of mixing and experimenting to get the colours I wanted.  I really didn’t see the need to reinvent the wheel if what I wanted was available off the shelf!  Fortunately a trip to the local branch of The Range (which has a great selection of items for artists and craftspeople) produced a number of colours that were just what I needed.  I didn’t mind because they are the sort of colours that I love so I knew they would get used one way or another!

Above is an enlarged copy of the bark photo (A3) (left) alongside some of my experimental silk painting to show how the silk paints turned out.  I tried using some rock salt (top of silk piece on the right) to see how that looked, but felt that it removed too much colour and decided that it wasn’t quite the look I wanted on this occasion.  But the actual colours and their mixed combinations I was very happy with.

Now I had a choice to make, whether to use the dying method or the silk painting method.  Either would totally change the fabric from its original neutral.  However …………………. add rationale in here on why silk paints and not dyeing ……  So with that decision made I pressed on and started colouring my base fabric pieces.

Here’s how the various pieces looked when they were done and ironed to set.  Note the untouched knitted sample front centre, starkly contrasting with the coloured pieces!  The knitted pieces took the paint differently to the silk pieces, with the paint not always going through to the reverse side, but yet dripping a bit through the holes in the knitted texture, but I didn’t mind this because it added to the effect.  The paint areas also tended to blur more at the edges on the knitting, but I liked the fact that they looked different because I was after all trying to create a feeling of the various textures in the bark on the tree.

Now I had to work out a plan for actually making the scarf.  As suggested in the course notes my first job was to work out what size and ‘look’ of finished scarf I wanted, and I soon knew that long enough to tie loosely and hang down similar to a long pendant was the sort of length I wanted, while the width would need to be such that it would go around the neck without needing to fold over too much and lose the view of the finished fabric.  Experimenting with a couple of scarves and odds and ends of fabric aided this process.

The next thing I needed to think about was actual construction of the scarf, and that was a whole new ball game.  Unlike some garments a scarf ideally needs to be a double sided item, with either side being the ‘right’ side as both would show.  My various pieces of coloured fabric clearly had right and wrong sides, with the colours often being brighter on one side than the other so to use them as they were would give an obvious difference.  Hmm, a quandary.

After a bit of thought the Tyvek sample I’d done earlier led me to decide that cutting up the fabric and then re-assembling would give a lovely patchy effect like the original bark, and the easiest way to do this would be using my sewing machine.  As someone who does quite a lot of machine embroidery it didn’t take long for inspiration to hit me that using some of the stronger clear wash-away that I have in my supply stash would make a good base to attach the pieces to and give a foundation while I stitched them together and then added further stitching to aid blending and provide more texture.  At first I thought I’d need to do two pieces (like a front and a back) and then join them together, but after a bit of experimentation I realised that if I did it carefully I could tack my pieces to both sides of the wash-away to create a reversible scarf.  I’d never tried anything like this before, but it sounded a fascinating challenge and one I couldn’t resist.

I now cut some calico into approximately the size I wanted as a guide and did a final try on.  Then I cut some strips of the heavy duty wash away, which I had to join together with some tacking stitching to give me the right length.I knew there wasn’t much point in attempting to be accurate because the method I was going to use would lead to a bit of variance according to the shapes of the pieces of fabric.  This was a bit like doing a rather inexact jigsaw puzzle.  There were no definite rules I could follow, only my instincts as to which shape, colour and thickness of fabric I put where.

I tacked on the pieces of fabric, and when I was happy with how things looked I started to stitch, initially just around the edges using a multi-colour embroidery thread as both top thread and in the bobbin. 

Once I had the basic shape, then I did further stitching in a range of machine stitches both using the feed dogs up and down for free motion.  I found that if I was careful the wash-away gave a strong enough base that I didn’t have to worry about hooping the pieces in order to do the free motion stitching – bonus!  Sometimes I used the same threads top and bottom, others I varied them according to the colours of the pieces of fabric.  Again, this was purely down to personal judgement, but this type of creativity is something I love.  This is when the fabric and thread become my personal canvas and paint.  I’m creating something new and unique, just allowing myself to relax and enjoy the process.  Great stuff!

If this was a film then at this point the caption would appear “Several days and many hours later”.  But gradually I felt that enough was enough.  So I trimmed off as much of the excess wash away fabric as I could, then soaked the scarf in aired water for a while, and began the process of rinsing and rinsing the scarf to remove the wash away (remembering to dispose of the used water out in the garden as there is the danger of blocked waste pipes from the semi-desolved pastic if you aren’t careful).  Once I was sure I had done enough I put the scarf in a net bag (the sort you use for tights and small items) and washed it in the washing machine on a delicates setting along with some other appropriate items to ensure it was completely free of the wash away and nice and soft.  Once dried all that remained was a careful iron to set the pieces into shape.

Now for the ‘acid test’.  I brought it into work to show colleagues what it looked like – after all I’d been boring them for long enough with the tale of its life so far! – and here are a couple of pictures of folk trying it on.  They seemed to be suitably impressed, and had even (coincidentally) worn just the right colours to show it off.

So what do I think of the finished result?  Well I’m really pleased with how it turned out.  It’s very much how I wanted it to be, and is both unique and unusual.  I don’t know that I would want to have done anything especially different with this particular item, but I do have quite a few ideas for alternative variations, such as:

• If I had decided to use dyed fabric rather than the silk painted version, how would this have turned out and compare with this one?
• I stuck with using relatively small patches of coloured fabric, but have wondered about the finished effect of using fewer larger ones instead.
• Also, although it has a wavy edge, the overall impression of the scarf is still pretty rectangular.  However, it would be interesting to try going a bit further and producing a scarf that had a much more irregular shape, more like the original random patches.  One technique to do this could be making double sided individual patches using the wash away fabric and then gradually joining those together, deliberately having quite narrow joins in some places and much wider ones in others.

These are just my initial thoughts, but I’m sure that others would follow.  Also, this time I’ve used this technique to make a scarf, but I think it could be taken a further and used to create other items.  I rather fancy a long flowing waistcoat.  So many ideas and possibilities really, given time to try them out.

Alexandra Palace, 08/10/11 – Ruth Lee

I used Ruth as an example of someone who inspired me during my Textiles 1 unit.  This is what I wrote – I found it out to remind myself!

Ruth Lee

Ruth’s work varies in scale from smaller items such as jewellery and knitted boas through to larger pieces of clothing and exhibition items such as her ‘Spirit Dress 1 to 4’.  She was initially interested in printed textile design, but as her knowledge of knitting, and in particular machine knitting, evolved (she is a completely self-taught machine knitter) she became fascinated by the endless number of variables that could be utilised to create items.  This includes both the built-in patterning facility as well as hand manipulation techniques.  I have to say that this is part of my fascination with the craft.

Ruth has been invited to travel to Australia and New Zealand to talk about her work on several occasions.  She has written several books (acquiring a copy of her “Pattern on the Knitting Machine”, published in 1990, was when I first became aware of her work) as well as contributing to specialist magazines, taking part in exhibitions and presenting workshops.  A few years ago Ruth was a guest speaker at the Guild of Machine Knitters’ AGM held in Cheshire, and I remember being amazed at the different pieces of her work she had brought along in a couple of unassuming suitcases.

She has described her work as multi-disciplinary, including continuous loop technique (hand and machine), surface design and manipulation.  The long list of materials she cites she uses includes “ ..very fine basketry cane, enamelled copper wire, paper yarn, metallic and cotton sewing thread, plastics, rope, elastic, plant material, fabrics, tape, cling film for example and, at the other end of the spectrum, the new generation of modern hand knitting yarns.”

Ruth says she thinks with her hands, with ideas evolving as she works the material and tries different techniques.  The same technique or stitch pattern worked again utilising different materials may look different; “.. for example as a group of leaves on a particular tree repeat in shape and form but are not totally identical.” Personally I love this idea of variance within a theme, and the way that slightly different component parts can be put together to create something else.

Her inspirations include previously used items, and the memories that they may hold, such as clothing or shoes; places, gardens and plants; repeating patterns and textures; and cycles of birth, growth and death.

The first suggested inspiration on the list was  previously used items, and in particular a pair of Georgian shoes led to her producing her ‘Made from Memory’ exhibition in 2005.  As an example of this collection of work,  the items in her ‘White Shoe Installation’ (see picture) were made from white machine knitted sewing thread bonded to fine Tissutex papers .  Hence she used simple machine knitting to aid her exploration of this theme.  She describes these items as “Pure, simple, unadorned shapes: the worldly, wealthy-class Georgian shoe is stripped of all its finery to express notions of spirituality.”  I have seen these ‘shoes’ for myself so can appreciate the image the Ruth has worked to create.

It is items such as these that, to my mind, make textile art more than worthy of being recognised alongside other types of traditionally recognised art work.

Ruth is usually exhibiting and presenting a workshop at AP, and I drop by her stand to say hello and find out what she’s been up to.  This year her exhibition was about “Celebrating the handmade in the digital age”.  As part of this she has returned to her roots in printed textiles.  She said that “My self-set challenge is to create and exhibit a sample collection of contemporary art textiles for interior spaces with a view to making contacts and potential business opportunities for future commissioned works.” The exhibition was called “Tomorrow at Daybreak” and used digitally printed cloth.  The pieces were inspired by migrating birds, and here are a few sample photos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s difficult to show from a 2D picture how beautiful these were.  The fabric was light and with the least amount of air flow the pieces moved around as if the birds were flying.  Beautiful, vibrant colours as well.

Once again I think these attracted me because they are basically wall hangings, but very different from the one I made and the printed circuit board one I saw on the way into AP!  Yet they gave me pause for thought, not just because I know Ruth personally, but because they are an example of a technique I have little experience of yet would like to find out more and hopefully have a go myself at some point.  So this time it’s thanks Ruth!

Alexandra Palace, 08/10/11 – Alice Wolfe

In total contrast to Beryl Dean, Alice Wolfe is a young, new textile designer.  As a machine knitter I couldn’t help but stop and stare and the fantastic birds that Alice had on display at AP.

This is the picture of one of them from a scan of Alice’s business card.  Absolutely amazing!  The combination of colours and various knitted pieces is attractive and yet somehow appropriate.  The birds weren’t small either – see the next photo below which I took of her display to try and give an idea of their size.  A lot of people stopped to look at them.

Alice has just completed a BA (Hons) Constructed Textile Design Course and she has a blog at: http://alice-wolfe-samazama.blogspot.com/.   This reveals that the birds are the result of her working on the traditional Japanese crane icon. Isn’t it fascinating where we get our initial ideas from?

I find the boldness of her work inspiring.  I’ve only had a couple of attempts at doing something 3D, and while one of those helped me to win a prize in the Butterfly Magic Competition, I know that there is a huge amount I could learn about doing 3D work, and Alice’s endeavours have set me thinking.  Thanks Alice!

Alexandra Palace, 08/10/11 – Beryl Dean

This year’s show included a display of a range of work by Beryl Dean (1911 – 2001) as a celebration of 100 years since her birth and to mark the launch of the Beryl Dean Archive. 

In all honesty I didn’t know much about her before I went to AP, just that her name seemed familiar – my lack of knowledge of course, not something she deserved!  Photographs of her work on display were not permitted as is often the case, but I found it so interesting that I bought a postcard for reference and made a note of a book title “Emboidery in Religion and Ceremonial” as I felt her work warranted a bit of later investigation.

The postcard (above) shows a small bit of detail from a ‘Festal Altar Frontal, St Margaret’s King’s Lynn’ and indicates that this was Beryl’s work assisted by Con Bolton and Elizabeth Elvin in 1965.  So that means it’s nearly as old as me!  Yet I don’t think it looks dated, it could easily be something fresh and new. Anyway, time for some further research.

As is the way in 2011, my first step to find out more about Beryl was a search on the internet.  First of all I took a look at the web site for All Saints Church, Newland, Gloucestershire (http://allsaintsnewland.btck.co.uk/The%20Tavern%20Clock%20and%20the%20Beryl%20Dean%20Textiles) where I discovered a biographical note about Beryl  which includes the following introductory paragraph:

“BERYL DEAN was an important innovator in the field of 20th- century ecclesiastical embroidery, as a practitioner, as an inspirational teacher and as a writer. Through her writings, lectures and the exhibitions she has given, Beryl Dean has done much to influence public and professional awareness and forward the cause for well-designed church textiles appropriate to contemporary use.” *

Included later in the note are the following two pictures of a chasuble and a pulpit frontal:

and the following note relating to them:

“We are very privileged to have garments made by Beryl Dean here at All Saints’ church Newland.The embroidered Chasuble and stole form part of the festal set of vestments designed and made by Beryl DeanThe design depicting motifs representing the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley is unique to this church.The pulpit fall can be seen in its permanent position on the pulpit and is designed to link the colours of the sanctuary and the nave and draws heavily on the architecture of the church in its interpretation Worked in Gold Thread beads and laid on handwoven silk.The design of the chasuble and stole is based on motifs (snails, fish & waterweed) representing the River Wye (leaves and plants) representing the Forest of Dean.The Chasuble has panels of embroidery on both the back and front for either an eastward or westward celebration of the Eucharist.”

I think that both of these are beautiful.  The colours are vibrant and there looks to be plenty of detail.

Next I hunted for some more biographical information and notes about her techniques and methods.  Her obituary in The Telegraph (13/04/01) states that she  “… was a leading exponent of modernist design in ecclesiastical embroidery; she introduced an entirely new approach to a field hitherto limited to a traditional Victorian style.”, so it seems she was a bit of an embroidery revolutionary!  It further comments that: “Some felt that Beryl Dean’s work dated too easily, and suggested that it was inappropriate to use ecclesiastical vestments and frontals as vehicles for individual expression. Her craftsmanship, however, was flawless, and many argued that churches needed to be brightened up with modern designs to attract younger worshippers.” I have to say that sounds good to me.

Further hunting revealed another obituary by Judy Barry* [utilised by All Saints Church, Newland, Gloucestershire in their notes].  She describes how Beryl was a prolific worker who not only produced works but also was a teacher and writer of several books.  She was clearly an embroiderer who loved working with metal thread and gold work, both of which have always been popular in ecclesiastical works.  But she also utilised other techniques alongside her hand embroidery, such as patchwork and aplique, and not all of her work was ecclesiastical, with examples of tray-cloths and bed linen being cited by Judy.

 My search for books by Beryl revealed mainly ones about ecclesiastical embroidery – no surprise there then!  But there are a number of them and, thanks to this visit, I will be keeping my eye out for second hand copies (unused ones look to be very expensive!) both on Amazon and in second hand/charity shops (amazing places to find things!) in case one pops up.

What attracts me to her work from what I’ve seen so far?  I think it’s the boldness.  The mixture of classical with modern.  That a lot of items are designed to be viewed publicly, whether worn or displayed.  I think this possibly is a reflection of my recent work on the large wall hanging for my City & Guilds course.  Prior to that I don’t think such items took my interest so much, but now that I’ve ‘had a go’ I find I’m drawn to paying them more attenction, examining their construction and considering what I might have made if it was me.  So I think it is fair to say that I am being influenced by the work of others in this way, which I see as a positive element of my personal growth and development.

* My thanks to Revd Canon David I. Lawrence for his kind permission to reproduce extracts and photographs from the church web site.  If I’m ever near by I must go and have a look at this pretty church and the vestments while I’m there!

**  The World of Embroidery, Volume 52 No.5, © Judy Barry

Alexandra Palace, 08/10/11 – Arrival

Once again I managed to escape for the day to the show at AP, joining with a coach load of ladies from the local Embroiderer’s Guild for a lively and interesting day out.

As always there was so much to look at, right from the moment you entered the foyer.  You couldn’t miss the man actively weaving a long strip of fabric …

His use of blocks and bricks taped together to hold his warp threads taut received a lot of amused comment.  Simple but it worked!  I’ve only ever had a go (in my Textiles 1 unit) at weaving using a simple frame, and while the process is similar, using a proper loom must be a very different experience, although I’m not sure about actually sitting inside one as this chap is doing!  Maybe one day I’ll get the chance to try more for myself.  His efforts were to demonstrate Ewe Kente Weaving – some sample designs below.  (www.eshopafrica.com)

 

Then there was an amazing huge circuit board, originally commissioned to be displayed in the offices of an electronics company. Utilising a range of materials, I can only describe this as stitched and stunning!

It wasn’t easy to get photos of this because everyone was drawn to it and a large crowd of admirers definitely got in the way.  But it was worth the effort to record such an imaginative use of 3d techniques and materials.  I couldn’t help wondering what I would have done if someone had asked me to create something similar!  But it was definitely thought provoking, raising lots of questions in my mind as to whether, given the same task, I would have used the same sort of materials and techniques, where would the subject matter have taken me?  Impossible to say of course, but it made me think about the issues involved in producing an item so large … it would need a large area for assembly for starters.

Moving on, inside the exhibition I of course saw lots of things.  However, there were three lots of work that particularly interested me, and I’m going to give each one it’s own separate entry rather than squash them onto here.

Influences on my work 4: digital photos and ‘painting’ using thread

Monet was an impressionist, and Richard box uses techniques that remind me of impressionism as part of his embroidered pictures.  While I was looking through my collection of textiles and machine embroidery reference books I came across the work of two ladies that stirred my interest next.  Richard stitched over a collage of arranged snippets of fabric to create his pictures.  Others paint their own backgrounds or more detailed pictures and stitch over them.  Plus, with improved modern technology, there are a number of machine embroiderers who use digital photography to aid their work, both in finding inspiration (as an alternative to sketching, which in all honesty is much more my style!) and as part of creating the finished article either indirectly or directly.

I incorporated some digital photographs printed on fabric within the final project for my City & Guilds Level 3 course (a wall hanging).  Some of the photographs were left just as they were printed, but most of them had at least a small amount of stitching added to them to give more interest and dimension.  So I have touched on this technique before, but not really tested and experimented very extensively.

In a book by Doreen Curran (1) she describes the basics of free-machine embroidery, and includes some samples of ‘doodling’, writing and experimenting with basic stitches such as running stitch …….

and zig zag ……

She covers a variety of techniques in her book, including openwork and stumpwork, but a lot of what she has made incorporates either a simple painted background or more detailed picture she has stitched over to enhance the painting.  Her picture called ‘A Room With a View’ is an example of this.

So on the whole in this example the stitching enhances the painting or gives texture, and only in places is it a core part of the design.  There are other examples of her work where the stitching is more core to the picture, but while they are lovely, I’m going to use examples from another lady’s portfolio of work to show painting using stitching and thread that are excellent.

This work is by Alison Holt, and on the back of the book (2) it says “Using hand-painted silk backgrounds, detailed step-by-step photography and just two basic machine stitches, Alison Holt shows how to create a stunning range of exquisite landscapes and gardens …”.   I’m definitely not going to disagree with that description.  Inside Alison says “Sketching or painting is a thoroughly enjoyable way of recording what you see.  It is also time-consuming, so I have developed my photography skills ….  This means I can concentrate on the composition of my picture, and let the camera take care of the details”.  Beneath this comment is the following example:

On the left are the photos she’s used as her source, and having selected elements of detail and composition from them the picture on the right is the completed embroidery.  The thing that is amazing is that at first glance the embroidery looks like a picture!  Here is another example:

I’ve shown these examples to several colleagues at work and they were amazed when they realised that the embroidered eamples aren’t photographs as well.  One person even commented that they were so much better than the original photos because there was greater depth and dimension, and wished they could take photos that were as good as that!!

Later in the book there are a couple of examples of how she actually goes about her projects, and I’ve decided to include one of them here both for future reference and also to demonstrate how similar the process is to that of an traditional artist with their paints.

First of all she selects here theme and her colour palette, spending time working out which part of the source photograph she wants to include and – just as importantly – what she wants to exclude.

Then she sketches in an outline with an air-soluble pen, applies resist to the lines, and adds washes of colour to slected areas before starting to stitch the first patches of shading and colour.

Lines are marked to help differentiate between areas where flower heads are to go as opposed to the ‘background’ of foliage fo both those flowers and adjoining ones.

Layers of colour and stitch are built up for the smaller flowers in the ‘background’ …

Then the larger flower heads are added, followed by the smaller flower heads that are in front of them …

And finally the topmost layer of foliage and the lawn in the foreground are stitched to complete the picture.

Does this work inspire me?  Most definitely yes!  However simple it may be, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the challenges of digital printing on fabric and then utilising those pictures that I’ve done so far.  The examples of the work by these two ladies provides a whole range of techniques to try for myself and expand both my knowledge and skills base, as well as encourage me to ask myself “now what if I try …….”.  That can only be good for my personal development as a textile artist.

References:

(1) “The Magic of Free-macine Embroidery” by Doreen Curran, 1992, Search Press [ISBN 1 903975 14 X]

(2) “Beginner’s Guide to Machine Embroidered Landscapes” by Alison Holt, 2001m Search Press [ISBN 0 85532 917 3]

Influences on my work 3: ideas from Richard Box

Following on from my post on impressionism and the work of Monet, I’ve done a bit of thinking and realised that I see a connection between that and the work of Richard Box.

Richard has been described as “… a professional artist and embroiderer who teaches drawing and design courses for the Embroiderer’s Guild all over Britain” (1).  I first met him in person a few years ago at an ICHF exhibition in Brighton, and was fascinated by his work and technique combining fabric collage and emboidery.  Some of his books are ‘classics’, recommended to all kinds of art, design and craft students who have to go through the common basics of learning about colour, mark making, art materials etc.  These include “Drawing for the Terrified” and “Basic Drawing Techniques” from a general art perspective, and then “Richard Box’s Flowers for Embroidery”, “Colour and Design for Embroidery” and “Drawing and Design for Embroidery” (1).  The latter is the only book of his I have in my collection.  I bought it from Amazon for the princely sum of 31p, plus £2.75 p&p; definitely a bargain, especially for someone like me who doesn’t have natural drawing ability.

Here are some sample scans of his work.

In this first example the upper picture is an oil painting of delphiniums (1979), while the lower one is the same picture interpreted as an embroidery.

In this second example of poppies as the subject matter (1985-6) the top left and top right are colour sketches, while the middle right and bottom pictures are embroidery interpretations using fabric collage and embroidery.  It is this technique that reminds me of the work of Monet, a technique that Richard himself describes as “Design and drawing with fabric and thread”.  It isn’t quite the same of course, but it has that essence of starting with something that gives a general impression of what you are seeking to create, but then adds stitching to complete and fill in the detail.  So how is it done?

First of all we start with a drawing, this time of poppies and daisies.  In reality it should be in colour, but unfortunately, I think due to the age of the book, they economised and only used black and white examples for the exercise.  Anyway, you’ll have to use your imagination on that one.

Then (assuming you want your finished picture to be the same size) you trace the basic outlines.  Lay the paper over your backing fabric (he uses  hessian) with the original drawing close at hand.  Study the colours in the drawing, and work out what colours are in the drawing – essentially the same colours and the pencils or paints you originally used if it’s one you did yourself.  These are the colours of fabric that you need – and they don’t necessarily have to be plain ones – so go through your ‘rag bag’ and select pieces of fabric in the right colours – including lots of different hues of that colour - into piles.  Take your scissors and cut these scraps into tiny pieces, some with curved edges, some with straight edges, some very small (eg like your little finger nail), some larger.  Choose the colour you want to start with, and cut out all of those parts of the tracing paper relating to that colour so you can use this as a stencil.  Using a little PVA glue carefully fill the area of the stencil with pieces of the appropriate coloured fabric stuck to the backing fabric.  Continue in this fashion till all of the coloured areas are complete.  (I’ve said that quickly, but in reality this could take a long time, but should nevertheless be an enjoyable part of the process.)

Richard comments “Remember that your original drawing does not so much represent what you saw, but rather it expresses your response to what you saw and, indeed, experienced by means of your other senses as well.  Thus, visual accuracy is not necessarily the only quality that you may be seeking, if at all.”  And that is why this seems like impressionist work to me.  It isn’t about being exact and precise and detailed, it’s about conveying a response, an impression to the original subject within you artwork.  So it’s up to the individual to decide how much fabric and how little, and whether they want a lot of the background visible or hardly any.

When done, at this stage Richard’s piece looked like this:

So very similar to the blobs and splodges and strokes that Monet used, but not quite there.  Now you take your piece to the sewing machine, and using a large zig zag stitch, free motion and a variety of threads you sew across each section of coloured fabric with the corresponding colour, tone and hue of thread to both tack the fabric to the backing, and also ‘draw’ using the stitches to create the composition.  Refer back to the original drawing here and there, stand back and look at your work from a distance, and slowly but surely build up the work.  Richard of course gives a lot more detail and suggestion, but that is the essence.  After reaching a point it might be desirable to add some hand stitching for small, controlled detail, and maybe alternate between hand and machine until you are satisfied that the finished look is what you want.  As Richard notes “One of the most important things to remember is that your embroidery expresses you in a harmonious way – so try to remember to enjoy doing it.”

So this is how his example looks when complete.  Again, it’s a great shame it’s not in colour, but I think you can get the impression, especially after referring back to the colour examples I first gave.

Hence now I think of Richard Box as, among other things, an impressionist embroiderer!  This is definitely a technique that inspires me to want to experiment with.  Following a recommendation from my tutor I borrowed a book on collage from the library and picked up one or two useful ideas from that as well which I have done a few simple experiments with as part of developing a few ideas from my sketchbooks.  I can think of at least one way in which I could combine part of that with a bit of this, as it were.  I probably won’t get time to do that properly as I have the scarf assignment to complete (!!), but maybe I can add a post showing those examples and explaining how I can see the two ideas working together.  But that’s for another day!

References:

(1) “Drawing and Design for Embroidery: A course for the fearful” by Richard Box, 1988, Batsford [ISBN 0 7134 5547 0]