Castle Rock Forest - Day 5

A short day today, but I wanted to finish the colour blocking with an over lay of gauze.

My colour supply is getting low as I did little painting last summer and I had given some away at my last workshop. But what I had worked with a little bit of dipping in the dregs of my coffee.
Truly! Anything for the art. 😉
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I re posted the bare cloth so the difference is clear. Much softer transitions. This is only glued in place and where I want to highlight the colour.....I simply cut it away.

The other thing I wanted to do was to use some of the 'shrubs' I stitched at Crieff. In hindsight, they weren't quite what I was after. So I got out my T shirt pens and then dipped them into coffee as well.
Now they blend into the background a little better.

These are stitched onto the upper left.

Castle Rock Forest

I spent two days on this at a SAQA retreat in Crieff. It seems like I have little to show but I know how these things progress......Slowly.

I'm combining 3 images for this new forest scene. One is a ruddy forest image, and two photos. I want more colour in the piece and I want something tangible in the back ground other than fuzzy light..

Castle Rock BC

 

I spent almost a whole day assembling the Mountain that will all but disappear in the background.

Another day, the first of many assembling TREES........ and I'm on my way with this new piece.

Trees Trees Trees ......tomorrow

Polar Bear - Day 2

Not a full day here.
I stitched for a few hours (yes hours) avoiding the hard part, and then finally in the afternoon I tackled the muzzle.

The teeth make all the difference.......and he needs a nose job.

One Last Polar Bear

Here at the end of this long winter, I think I'm, ready to embrace Spring, but there was one last imagine in my folder I wanted to work with.

I heavily cropped it to one animal.

This interesting piece of 'hombre' fabric spoke as the ice wall with a second fabric for the Ice.

This is a standard collage piece .

This is as far as I'm taking it for now, but it's looking pretty good.

The Bear Went.........

Using a straight forward freezer paper collage, this guy came together in about 3 hours.

This is the same guy I used in the needle felted bear.

There were about 4 layers here in this photo shopped version.

Using the last of my 'shadow and pink light' on snow fabric, he fits right in, under the lights.

All that needs to be done is some thread work.

Mountain Pine - Day 8

I had a really good session this morning and afternoon, so I can see some real progress now.

On the downside, I 'broke' my JUKI and had to set up my Husqvarna for the free motion work necessary to produce the branches. 😒
There is a LARGE wait time in my area for repairs as there are only a few places that do the work.
It will have to wait.
I can finish the piece on the Husqvarna.  😌

Mountain Pine - Day 5?

Well into this New Year I can turn my attention fo a while to our sentinel Pine on the cliff edge.

While the pieces seem to be large as I work them in the 6 inch and 8 inch  hoops, they disappear into the scene with surprising regularity. But none of the branches are particularly robust. They are survivors, stunted and gnarled.

Chekamus Canyon River - Final

I worked the water this morning. (3 shades of cheesecloth plus white)
So....... for all practical purposes, this is finished.

Cropping to its best ratio and binding are all that is left.
No hurry for that.
Thanks for following along.

Chekamus Canyon River - Day 15

Detail takes time.
With other commitments later, this was a short day.
All these sections were assembled off the canvas: a sandwich of 'solvy' over tulle, washed and trimmed before stitching to the scene.

Two separate pieces here clearly defined by colour.

Three pieces...2 saplings over a bush.

Every day the shrubbery creeps over the rock face.

Chekamus Canyon River - Day 14

I couldn't post yesterday. I had to re charge my camera!

But I think I'm very near the end of the evergreens.
I've used a number of thread colours to add depth and shadow but now it's time to work the outer layers of the trees.
I first thought this variegated thread would be too bright but it added the 'life' I needed. For the last panel of branches in the hoop I used two different threads, adding a little more variation to the needle colour.

The lighter colours lift the branches and more the tree forward.

Chekamus Canyon River - Day 10

Short day to day.
Things are really slowing down because every branch is planned.

Since I'm working with the really close images, even the branches show, so in response they're beefed up and stitched thoroughly.

The picture shows the size of the individual stitches. I'm working with a very slow stitch and dragging the thread out up to between half an inch and a quarter of an inch.

 

 I didn't want to use my very best threads yet so this is all being done with inexpensive serging thread. At this speed it stands up very well, but I'm going through a lot.

The look is very life like. To anchor the stitches to the background, I'm tacking down the ends of the loops. I haven't cut the netting away nearly anywhere near the precision of the trees before hand as I think the structure would still be fragile. Having more netting helps in the security.

The last pictures show the three sessions in place.
You can see that progress is slow.

Chekamus River Canyon - Day 5

I spent an hour 'sketching' small trees onto netting. These were to be positioned down the distant slope on the right side of the canyon. However, when I went to place them in position I realized I had to deal with the sky...finally. It would have been very difficult to stitch around the tiny trees.

Necessity forced a decision and I went with close, straight lines. This took the rest of the morning.

I placed registration marks with a water erasable pen on the sky to help keep the stitching even and straight and sewed lines about 1/4 in apart. I used the pressure foot to give me the width between the lines.
A spritz with water and the lines disappeared.

As the ends of the lines stopped at the edge of previous stitching I worked the tails through to the back side, combed them in one direction and glued them in place with a strip of stabilizer. This strip will be incorporated with the final stitching.

After a late lunch, I was finally in a position to attach all those trees I had assembled in the morning.

Tomorrow is another day. 😁

Chekamus River Canyon - Day 4

Moved forward by two hill slopes this morning.

The whole picture puts it all in perspective.

I think I"ll shift to the other side for awhile.

Chekamus River Canyon - Day 3

For those keeping track, this is 5 hours of machine work.

The very distant slopes are covered with trees. That was simple but lengthy machine work.

The back illustration shows the volume of stitches in this area

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The green swath down the left side, forest, I worked off the piece in a hoop.

As the size of the thread painting area gets larger the more distortion can occur. Though it may not be

readily visible in the pictures there are many different shades of green being used here. 

The final part for today was comprised of trees in the left hand section that rise above the slope edge and sit in front of the distant hill. It's these 'eruptions' that give life to the work.

My twitch muscles have given out for the day. I'll pick this up again tomorrow.