Trees in the mist

Now for something completely different. At the moment I’m building up a collection of work to show at a large exhibition later this year, and things for this exhibition need to be different and unusual. Also, the theme of the exhibition is ‘Spirit of Place’, so everything I produce has to be related in some way to our part of Scotland

 So here’s a very different way of using machine embroidery. It’s a picture of our local hills with trees appearing out of the mist. It’s made of painted fabric appliqueed onto a piece of painted felt, and the trees are done in embroidery. I showed it to our local art group and they were very interested in it – probably because it’s closer to painting than it is to most embroidery

Aberdeenshire trees in winter mist

One sensible question to ask about this sort of thing is: why do it in embroidery? Wouldn’t it be just as good – or even better –as a painting? I often feel that some artworks (including some of mine!)  are done as embroideries just because the artist can, and wants to use their machine, and all too often the embroidery doesn’t add anything to the subject. But in this case I think the embroidery does help. The embroidered twigs and branches are rough and irregular and three-dimensional, just like real twigs and branches. Even the untrimmed ‘pokies’ at the edge of the appliqueed material look like the edges of rough grass

So this will do very well for the exhibition. But I have to admit that I rather miss working with colour, so I think this will be a one-off

Next week is the first week of the month, so next time I'll post the free design for April