Sketches of new ideas – The Accidental Embroiderer

The giraffe

6 October 2011MiaSketches of new ideasLeave a comment

At the exhibition a few weeks ago, someone asked me if I could embroider a giraffe on a T-shirt for them. I’d never done a giraffe before but they’re lovely animals so I tried a sketch.

Giraffe sketch

The main problem with digitising this sketch was all those separate spots. There was no way to digitise this drawing without a huge number of jump stitches (which is where the machine has to jump from one place to another without any connecting stitches between the two areas) I thought for a long time about maybe embroidering the spaces between the spots rather than the spots themselves so as to avoid all those jumps. I’ve done this before – for example on these little butterflies, where the dark “background” is in fact stitched on top of an area of white, so that the white appears through as spots, and there are no jump stitches between them

The white spots on the wings are in fact the white background showing through gaps in the dark overstitching

But the problem with this is that the stitches of the darker “background” have to stitch out in a number of different directions. That was OK for dark colours (where you can’t see much detail) and on a small design like the butterflies, but I though that on a big giraffe changing the stitch direction of the background so much would look very messy. So I just resigned myself to all those jump stitches, and I think the results are better for it. There are several things about this that need adjusting – for example, the eye, the head and the tail aren’t right – but those should be easy to fix

The giraffe v.1: still some adjustments to be made

The Cubist Bird

8 September 2011MiaSketches of new ideasLeave a comment

I always enjoy looking at the “statistics” report of this blog to see where visitors come from, and what brought them here in the first place. Most people arrive after doing a search for things that I talk about – for example recently we’ve had a lot of visitors looking for “Zentangle Animals”. However the other day I came across an unusual search – someone had been looking for “Cubist Birds”. I’ve never written about cubist birds, but I do mention Cubism a couple of times and of course there are lots of birds, so Google had just put them together. But then I started thinking about what a cubist bird would look like, and I even did a Google search myself, which didn’t turn up anything interesting. So then I tried a couple of sketches. The style of the first two looked nothing like cubism – I’m finding it more and more difficult to imitate other styles. They might make interesting embroideries eventually, but they’re definitely not cubist.

Two non-Cubist birds (the printing is just because I use scrap paper for sketching)

The third attempt was a bit better so I digitised it and stitched it out.

The sketch for the cubist bird…

…and the first version of the embroidery

The colours aren’t right and it would be better with a painted background. But now if that visitor ever comes back they might find something a bit more interesting to look at

However – somehow I like the sketch better than the embroidery. Clearly there's more work to be done on this

The Charley Harper style

13 May 2011MiaSketches of new ideasLeave a comment

The other day, purely by accident, I came across the work of Charley Harper, which was entirely new to me. I always associate this clean, geometric style with 50’s design, and although this isn’t my favourite decade I love the stylised birds and animals that Harper does in typical 50’s style.

Charley Harper's highly stylised, geometric birds

These designs would translate perfectly to appliqué, pieced quilts and many other fabric arts, and in fact I think there are some needlework kits out there which are based on Harper’s work

Although I’m not interested in copying his work directly, I’ve begun a series of sketches of birds based on his pared-down, geometric style. I find it difficult to simplify these designs as much as he does, and have included a lot more in the way of pattern and detail than you’ll find on his birds.

Two drawings of birds done in a modified Charley Harper style

I think these will make interesting appliquees, and may be adaptable to quilt designs. I've finished digitising these two and will post pictures of the sitchouts next week

The Zentangle Goat (or antelope?)

15 March 2011MiaSketches of new ideas / Zentangle style1 Comment

As I’m still without a machine I’m spending a lot of time drawing, and have come across the idea of “zentangles”, which are basically just formalised and structured doodles. There are lots of websites and blogs devoted to “zentangles” which you can find via Google, but here are a couple to start with.

http://www.zentangle.com/index.php

http://tanglepatterns.com/

Of course the idea of filling space on drawings with abstract patterns isn’t new. Many styles of art use abstract motifs as space-fillers in large, complex designs – you can find examples in Celtic art, Pacific tapa paintings and many others

A Celtic zentangle?

A zentangle from the South Pacific?

As far as the “zentangle” idea goes, I don’t like the psychobabble luggage that sometimes comes with it, and I also don’t like the idea of copyrighting something as basic and universal as a doodled pattern. On the other hand, some “zentangles” can be very beautiful, and anything that encourages people to draw, and to have faith in their ability to draw, has got to be a good thing

So I’ve been playing around with using zentangle-like motifs as decorative elements in a few drawings which I’ll eventually digitise. This one started out as a goat but ended up more like an antelope. I like the intricacy of the abstract patterns, and I will digitise it as a simple appliqué of the animal's body on a contrasting background. This is going to take a long time to digitise, but it will help pass the time until I can use the machine again

Sketch for a zentangle goat embroidery (or maybe a zentangle antelope)

Sketches for a strippy purse

13 June 2009MiaDesigns for projects / Sketches of new ideasLeave a comment

Cherri Kincaid and I have been discussing designs to go on a purse that she wants to sew. Here’s the pattern

http://www.indygojunctioninc.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=127&products_id=764

and you can see that the purse is made up of separate strips of fabric. This suggested the idea of flowers on long stems, each flower and stem fitting on a separate strip, so I’ve done a few quick sketches of some ideas. I’m not sure if I like them much as they are but they’ll probably be better once they’re digitised and stitched out. The colours will be stronger and there will be details on the flowers which will make them a little more interesting

Pheasant

9 May 2009MiaSketches of new ideasLeave a comment

Driving back from Crieff today I passed a rumpled bunch of feathers on the road, with a startled little head sticking up. It was a female pheasant who had obviously been hit by a car so I stopped, picked her up, put her in the passenger seat and took her home. I think she must have had a broken wing but I'm not enough of a veterinary surgeon to know what to do about that, and I was unwilling to inflict the pain of resetting a bone on a fragile bird. However our garden is heaving with pheasants so hoping for the best I planted her under the bird feeders. Eventually she limped off down towards the river but I did a quick sketch of her before she left. Seen from a distance female pheasants are a dull brown colour so I was surprised to see the iridescent blue and green eyes at the tips of the feathers on her back. Those would translate well into embroidery – you could use touches of metallic thread for the iridescent eyes. I've been trying to stylise the sketch, and make an embroidery design out of what was originally a bird portrait

Half realistic, half-stylised sketch of the pheasant. I still have to add the tail