I hesitated for a long time before deciding to post this, because it isn’t so much a design as a technical experiment, and it probably won’t be of much interest to most people, apart, perhaps, from other digitisers. I hope I don't lose too many readers because of it! It all began with a Tom Phillips’ painting, Autumn, which has fascinated me for a long time.
Tom Philips' "Autumn"
It looked to me like a flock of birds (mind you, most things seem to remind me of flocks of birds!) and I began playing around with ways of reproducing the effect of his painting in embroidery. Some of the things I tried were: overstitching shapes in colours that contrasted with the colours of appliqueed fabrics, outlines done in running stitch and triple stitch, overlapping shapes made up of layers of very low density embroidery, low density embroidery overlapping and running in different directions, clashing colours of background, thread and applique fabric, and a lot more
Experiment based on "Autumn"
Because I was working with Tom Phillips’ abstract painting as inspiration, my piece also turned out to be pretty abstract itself, which I hadn’t really intended. With hindsight I should maybe have given individual birds a bit more character and not made them all so much a part of the general cloud. But you can’t get it 100% right all the time, and I can use this piece as inspiration for the next one in the series
Hi Mia, Your imaginative approach to turning paintings and sculptures into embroidery is always amazing. I love your new interpretation of the abstract painting into machine embroidery. Your choice of colors for the background and birds is beautiful.
I actually really like it. The colors are more vibrant than I think of as autumn or sunset colors, but that may be just the way they scanned.
For some reason, your piece makes me think of stop-motion-over-time as a fledgling learns to fly as an adult.
Maybe that is in keeping with the try and try again, experimental approach.
🙂
I think your birds are very pleasing and I like this one a lot. Had you given the birds more character, I think you would have lost all that wonderful movement. Great job!
My favorite! I love abstract and your interpretation of the original piece is amazing.
I always look at your photos before reading what you say about them so I have my own opinion before I read yours and know nothing about digitizing but I think this is just beautiful. Usually not a fan of abstract art either but I think this one has beauty of movement and would make me pause a long time to enjoy it if it were on a art gallery wall!
I love it! Love the colors, the surreal effect of the birds. No, don’t give them more character — Great job! (again)
I love the design and if you look at it as “Stop Motion” as suggested by Gail it really fits the action. Love it. Thank you so much for sharing.
I think your experiment is beautiful. Your birds would be so beautiful on a scarf made from very sheer painted fabric with your birds embroidered on it, maybe not a dense as they are above, but just a hit of thread. Thanks for the inspiration.
J’aime ce côté explorateur
Que de belles idées
Merci