I need to thank Neville Hamilton for the inspiration for this hand stitched piece. Before Christmas he purchased one of my pieces as a gift for his partner after they saw it at my open house in November. At the open house we had discussed my upcoming exhibition called 'Pathways' . It just so happens that he is an excellent photographer. When he came to pick up the artwork he brought me three photos for inspiration. I immediately had an idea for one of them and he gave permission for me to use it as a photo transfer. It was an autumn scene of his partner walking their dog in the greenbelt forest. So here is what I did with it. First I scanned the photo into my computer and printed it on fabric. See original photo below. My scanned version would not upload because it was in the wrong format so I had to take a picture of the picture for this post.
I surrounded it with rectangles of autumn colours, adding stitches and paint to the photo transfer. Then I appliqued trees in the foreground and hand cut many tiny maple leaves and fused them in the foreground as well, stitching their veins with some lovely variegated threads I purchased from Laura Wasilowski at Artfabrik.
 |
| Laura's threads |
I covered it all with a fine yellowy netting and prepared a stretched canvas by turning it over and covering the frame with fabric.
I mounted the artwork inside the stretched canvas and, as a final touch I fused and stitched a few leaves drifting over the frame.
 |
| closeup of stitched leaves |
 |
| spilling over onto the frame |
 |
| An Autumn Walk in the Greenbelt |
It took a lot of hand stitching but once I started, I worked on it steadily until it was finished. Today we are living in a winter wonderland in Ontario and this bright burst of autumn (and a steaming latte) is just what I needed. I seem to find myself working on autumn scenes every winter. This piece will definitely be part of my 'Pathways' exhibit. I'm still thinking about the final naming of this piece.
