The Accidental Embroiderer

Two backgrounds, and a nod to Rousseau

I've been thinking a lot more about backgrounds, and the composition of the whole area of an embroidery, than I used
to, and the idea of a design just hanging somewhere in mid-air makes me a bit
uneasy these days. A while back I did a design of a Siberian tiger, which I
quite liked in itself, but it was definitely one of those mid-air designs. So
I’ve been trying to think of a suitable background for it. Thr tiger itself reminded me of some of the tigers in Rousseau's jungle paintings

Tiger-in-a-tropical-storm-surprised-rousseau-1891
A Rousseau tiger in the jungle

So my first idea was to put the tiger on an embroidered background of
Rousseau-esque jungle foliage.

 
Tigerbgtrees

The Siberian tiger in an embroidered jungle

This sort of worked, but the more I looked at it the more it
reminded me of a naive illustration to a children’s book – naturally, I
suppose, as Rousseau’s work does have a lot of childlike and naive elements.
However I wanted something a bit more sophisticated, so I just painted an
abstract and jungly background in greens and yellows, and stitched the tiger on
it. To my eye this is a more successful approach, and although it still needs
work I think it’s better than the more realistic treatment

Tigeronbg

The Siberian tiger in a painted jungle

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