Much against my better judgement I do a lot of commissions. They can create all sorts of problems, because my idea of a good picture isn’t always the same as the idea of the person I’m doing the work for, and I run the risk of doing a lot of work on something only for the client to be unhappy with it. However it’s always a challenge to try something that I hadn’t thought of before, and here’s an example. A client had a photo of two fighting hares that she particularly liked and asked me to make an embroidery from it.
The original photo
Because the idea was to copy the picture there wasn’t much I could do to change it, but I did get rid of the upraised paw of the left-hand rabbit, because it just didn’t look right – it looked like something weird growing out of the animal’s nose. So I brought that paw down, but otherwise stuck closely to the photograph. The first version was a pretty standard treatment. The coats of the animals were made from painted fabric appliqueed onto a painted background and overstitched with several shades of brown and grey – and it was pretty bad. There was nothing particularly awful about it but it was just boring
Boring…
So I sat down and tore the original version apart. The first thing I did was to change the eyes. The original version was similar to the way the eyes looked in the photo, but they just looked wrong so I changed them to something a little more expressive. And then the original ears looked more like rabbit’s ears than hare’s ears, so I changed those too. I also changed the profile of the faces, and made them a little less rounded
And then I ditched most of the overstitching on the bodies. For the appliqueed bodies I decided to use fabric felted with my embellisher with scraps of wool and roving. This is a technique I’ve used several times before to good effect, and I thought the furry finish would suit the hares well. Finally I printed a dense, complicated background. I was taking a chance using such a strong background but I thought the furry, textured animals would be able to stand out well against it
Better…
And the result isn’t bad – at any rate it’s better than the first version. The felted fabric worked well, and the hares do stand out against the background. If I do this again I think I’ll get rid of all the overstitching on the body – the felted fabric looks good enough on its own. But luckily the client is happy with this version, so I think I’ll get on with something else
Oh, the 2nd version is really nice! I like the overstitching around the edges. It lends a shadowing effect. You’re right that the eyes and ears are much better in the 2nd one. You have an amazing gift for identifying the elements that need to change. I like the stronger, patterned background, too.
Wow! The embroidered hares are awesome. I love your idea of using felted wool with the embroidery. You made your client very happy! Keep up the great inspiration for all of us.
I thought your first try was great, but your second was even better. You certainly do have an eye for detail and color. Thanks for sharing.