Landscapes

I really love making landscapes either in textiles or with paint. Last year I did quite a few lessons from the WOWbook series put out by D4Daisy publishers, written by Maggie Grey, that I haven't shared yet.

I had a lot of fun with this WOWbook 2 lesson as it is entirely hand stitched. I never used to like hand stitching at all but after I had children I found it very relaxing in the evenings. I still do.

This second WOWbook 2 lesson is based on  a photo transfer of a paper painted background. More details of the technique can be found in the book.  After doing the transfer I added a little more colour in select areas and then hand stitched the details. Loads of fun and not something I would have thought of on my own.

This next picture is a journal page I painted last year. Although it is abstract I thought it looked like an Australian landscape and wondered if I could do something with it.

After I did the photo transfer lesson from WOWbook I thought I finally had a way I could transfer my picture to fabric so I could stitch it. I first used a photo program to alter the original picture and change some of the colours. I was able to remove the stitching line from the center with the same program (I use Paintshop Pro).  I used my machine to stitch all the objects I could see in the original picture. I saw balloons in the circles in the sky and a fishing shack in the rectangle on the shoreline. It was an interesting experiment that then got me wondering what would happen if I turned the original upside down.

This is the upside down version of the original painting. I significantly lightened the colour to make a very different landscape. I used Pan Pastels to make some areas darker but it is still the same picture underneath.  Again I used simple machine stitching for the drawing of the image.

Next I went back to the computer and altered the original picture to make a sky. I cut some artist canvas to fit in my printer and printed the picture straight onto the canvas using a photo setting on the printer. It fed through my Epson printer without any problems as the canvas is quite stiff.

 The colours came out a little differently, especially the sky which was a lot lighter than I thought it would be. I decided to add colour to the right hand side of the print so I used an alcohol marker to add the green on the right. I used my machine for the drawing using only dark brown coloured thread. It was quite easy to stitch through the canvas as it is really only stiffened fabric, no stabiliser needed. I added some fence posts using mulberry bark cut to shape and after stitching everything I added wire between the fence posts.

I have enjoyed this little exploration of one technique. Sometimes one thing sparks an idea for another and you just have to keep going. I hope you get inspired to do your own versions of a landscape.