Adapting Art to embroidery works

Hello Mirjam,

What a good design exercise to "play" with even for me! In my case, it'll be a slightly different way to work as I'm a little too "disciplined" to just randomly throw in a pile of shapes, colors & textures together to see what comes out!?

Maybe this exercise will free some of my design inhibitions and jumpstart ideas for my new found interest designing applique art quilts. By using a set sized square, one will be able to accomplish quite a pile of design reference "pages" on what works and maybe what doesn't work.......an excellent way to challenge one's creativity! Just writing these words is inspiring many thoughts....thank you Mirjam for posting such a timely, helpful & fun exercise!

Thank you Lula !!! I appreciate your words very much ,

Yes sometimes we need yto go oiut of our Routines, to find another another angle.... { one of the things i adore in ESCHER~S works that he used all points of view :>:>::>:>:> ]

I hope it will be useful to you .

Yes , yes you got my idea , wonderful ,,,,,

Thank you for joining me... I just spent an hour looking at the colored printer plates of the cover of my "Mapressions Loci". i keep playing with the idea to arrange a bunch of them in some manner on the wall.. each print `circle` added 1-3 new colors and till the end it is not What it should be ,,, Because some of the colors are achieved by layers of various colors,, I laid them in a line on the floor , and looking at them , learn about how we realy see what we see .. A likewise , but not similar Lesson is looking at the hundreds of 'Sun Rise " photos i took , from the same window,each morning as i get up .

Light is the great painter of nature. Would you mind if i add more ideas to this excercise ??? mirjam

I often advice students , not to start their adapting art to needllework straight with the Great Famous calssics art . But rather look more at the folk art , and esp their own folkart, or Naive art.

An interesting Naive painter, that would be of special value to any textile or fiberart is IVAN RABIZIN the book about his art was printed under the series Yugoslav Naive Art , Ivan Rabuzin , by Ivan Sedej, Control Data Arts, 1982. Looking at his work , one wonders if he hasn`t worked woth cotton puffs , beads and various stiches ,,,,

Another is Grandma Moses ..... in the book Grandma Moses, An American Original , BY William C. Ketchum , jr. Todtri, 1999. on pages 28 & 29 , you will find 2 of her embroideries Although the writer says they were adapted from a print , one might study and compare this with her paintings ,, mirjam

Mirjam, that would be very helpful if you will add more ideas to this exercise. I like to keep an open mind to other thoughts and ideas.....you never know what helpful or interesting ideas will come by to inspire the next best design(s)!

As for me.....I can hardly wait for my new design studio to be built so I can finally have the space to spread out my work to look at from a distance, either hanging or laid down on a large table or floor space. It's a good way to judge the placement of details in the design from another vantage point.

One of my habits is to look at the reflection of my artwork by either holding up the work in front of a wall mirror or using a large hand mirror to do similar and depending on the size of the artwork using a small reducing glass.

Being able to see the artwork in a three dimensional perspective from the various angles reflected in the mirror or reducing glass allows me to rearrange motifs, or to either add or subtract motifs to better balance the artwork as it will be seen by others and not just from my "flat" point of view looking down at the work as I'm painting or stitching.

Sorry Apologies the Name is IVAN RABUZIN

mirjam

Lula , this is a wonderful idea ,,I mean the one with the mirrors , never occured to me ,,,,,thank you!!! I have a habit of hanging the work high up and than lie on the floor and look at it ,,,, Than lay it on floor and stand on high chair over it. I also cover up parts of the work and put other colored cloth next to it.... mirjam

That is a lot faster than my approach! The mirror is immediate; I use the digital camera. It seems that if you see it in photo form, it causes you to look objectively . I started using this for interior decorating and it fell into needlearts about 20 years ago. The mirror is a good approach too and going to try that next time. It also would check symetry since a mirror reverses the work so to speak. barbara in williamsburg

I'd just like to say "thank you!" to both of you, Lula and Mirjam! This discussion has been very interesting to follow, even though I'm no artist. The back-and-forth exchange of ideas and perspectives is a delight to "watch"!

Joan

Ditto from me. It's like watching art unfold. Lucille>

Thank you Joan , please join us with some ideas of your own , every one has new creative ideas she can share with others , and we all get richer from it . mirjam

Lula , this afternoon i tried your mirror idea, and wow wow ,this is a wonderful idea, Thank you. Than i took the mirrors and used them while sitting on the floor , this gave it a new dimension. I find looking at the work from above very important. When i worked on the Urban Planning Maps , for "Mapressions loci",i sometimes put them in the backyrad grass and went to the 2nd floor window to look at them. I think that living on a mountain also gave me a bit more understanding, at how the same point/ building /thing can look from various sides. When i takle tourists to see the city i always point out 1-2 big buildings and show them how the Dimentions `seem` to cahnge from down town/to mid town /to Top of the mountain [ 275 Metter s above sea ]. in the many walks i do i take many photos like that.. later when i come to Create a work i make the plans as if one sees them from above , but i always add some parts , that look as if One see it from the same level [=side] or from the foot of it ,,, at least one or two parts in each work like this isn`t in the same `level` as the main part. I have no Clear idea why this has to be like that , but i feel that is how i need it to be. But i never know Before hand in which part it will happen , until it `urges ` itself out. mirjam

Speaking of adapting art , acolleague gave me a very educative book .

" Art & Fear " Observations on the perils [and rewards ] of Artmaking . By Daviv Bayles & Ted Orland , Capra Press, 1993 . mirjam

Another favorite excercixe of mine , is looking at pictures and Drawings , and deciding , which Needlework Technique would be `most appropiate for THIS Drawing or Picture????'" Some picture looks likeit will be best represented in embroidery, Another will be better represented , by applique [ now one has to decide with which cloth , Felt ? Wool Silk ? etc.. Another looks like Knitting will serve it best !!! I nickname it "finding the Cloth equivalent to paint" , mirjam

Barbara,

You're right about the mirror checking for symmetry......many quilters use two mirrors at right angles for this very reason to check the symmetry of their designs in quilt blocks. These sets can be purchased at quilt shops.

True, the mirror gives more immediate but the use of a digital camera is a great idea too because a camera will record something the "eye" might miss....with a photo, one can then look at one's lesiure and perhaps notice details missed during the initial look.

Though this next aspect isn't the most important it's something to think about. Depending on what type of photographer one is, one might even catch nuances of light and shadow, adding an extra dimension.....what I think of as being an emotional one.

The point of a photo is how unsparing it is recording whatever is in front of the lens.......it's a truthful recording of details & facts....in a wide angle or screen photo, one will catch the outside edges of the original focus area for even more detail to see how it all fits together.

Mirjam,

Ever since I learned the needlearts, such as stitching, my artwork developed several dimensions.

I started out by subconsciously "stitching" every canvas design while painting it........my mind can just see the stitch along with the thread I'd like to use for the best effects of what I'm painting! But, I eventually became frustrated by how rigid this was to do on any type of gridded design with XS being the most rigid.....there were limits on far I could go.

Not being able to "draw" or express natural curves in XS or needlepoint, I turned to embroidery, which to me is the most natural way to "paint" with stitches & threads.

So for awhile this was a lot of fun to do, to be able to embroider what I wanted to express until I realized this work was kind of "flat".....so turned to three dimensional stitching techniques such as those stitches that raise up standing away from the ground fabric.....but I eventually found this to be quite tedious for me to do even though I admire this type of raised needlework very much.

Then I discovered quilting, especially applique and this opened another new window of expression....applying pieced of fabrics or other embellishment onto a design. For the moment I'm quite happy being able to stitch with the combination of all the stitching techniques I've taught myself........basically it's stitching "collage" using combinations of what techniques I'd like to use to create and express my feelings with needle & thread and whatever other materials I'd like to use......what some might call embellishments. I like mixing everything together to "draw" or "paint" my artworks. No more one type of needlework but a combination of everything that works including "making up" techniques.....whatever might look good.

Once I get through the work I've got to do now, I'd like to tent stitch either a piece of silk gauze or get a piece of 18 mesh polyester canvas which is very drapable and is produced or distributed by Kreinik......people often make clothing out of this soft canvas. Obviously, depending on what type of ground fabric I use will determine the size of the face. I'd like to make a doll with the above face.....I can vary what techniques I'd like to use to make her body or clothing using all kinds of embellishments & techniques to express whatever message or feeling I want this doll to have.

She can have a big head, a small head, arms and legs or look like one of those rounded shaped Russian matroiska dolls....the ones that come with a set of different sized dolls one inside another...I like the shape, don't have to fuss with arms and legs or even worry about proportions. I just want to be creative and create an artistic figure with maybe a theme, such as the Man in the Moon for that matter which in my case as a "she" could be Mlle Moon with shiny stars in her hair!

So in many ways, I'm doing what Mirjam is writing about for the best stitches or techniques to use which in my case is doing whatever techniques that will work in a particular project. The bottomline is creativity shouldn't have any boundaries.....be free to use whatever might work to create the most original pieces to decorate our lives not to mention pleasing our senses and emotions.