Week 3 Design 3

This has been a difficult week with the funeral of my friend, the last week of the school term and unpleasantness with a member of my staff which has seen me in conflict with that staff member.  All these things have taken their toll and left me feeling unwell.

I am finding the fact that I have limited my sources of inspiration to the Pagoda and it's gardens difficult.  But the challenge is about detail so I just have to stretch myself and look.  When I was young and studying dance my teacher used to tell me not to think so much but just go with the flow.  So, with this weeks design this is what I have tried to do.  I started with this photograph of a plant which is in the gardens of the Pagoda.

I then cropped the photo to select a detail.

 

I played around with colour trying to break the mental link I had with the photo.

 

I then took the shapes and used them as a starting point to develop some kind of abstraction.

I can see that I will have to start dyeing my own fabrics to develop the colours I want to use.  I just didn't have the kind of colours that I wanted in my stash, so have had to substitute what I could find.

 

I tried to machine stitch the design but that isn't the look I want.  It has to be hand stitched to get the disconnected look that I am after.  That is going to take time and I need to buy a new thimble or I'm going to have holes in my fingers.  I have begun and the hand stitching gives the look I want.

Comments

[Pam Holland]

FANTASTIC how are you going to do the berries.?

[Carolyn Foley]

They are no longer berries just shapes. Keep watching and you will see as I get on with the stitching. (Now I can't give everything away at once, especially as I'm not sure what I'm going to do!!!)