Painting Monet - More Buried Treasure

I found more photographs while dumping out ancient files - these were dated 1996, so were taken long before I had either a digital camera or a computer. There are even shadows at the top right of this one, as I had taken it outdoors for good light.

I painted this for myself (copyright thing, etc. so I never marketed it), just to see if I could do it. It isn't the prettiest canvas I ever painted, but I will say it was the greatest challenge, the most difficult, and I thoroughly enjoyed it - and achieved what I wanted to do.

Being always mindful of painting to make the stitching easy and relaxing, I wanted to anchor the lily pads as they float on the water, but yet give the water depth and show the reflection of the trees.
The lilies and their pads appear very colorful, but if you look at the close-up, you can see that there are actually very few colors, and those are painted simply for easy stitching.

The colors used are just "generic" enough that one could choose any of several ranges of the hues used. One would not have to stick absolutely to the color on the canvas.

The second detail shows the reflected trees with the lily pads floating on the surface of the water. This was the most difficult effect I've ever worked out. The trees had to be easy to stitch - but still kind of fuzzy like a reflection.

The water is smeared looking only because I was going to do it myself, and just wanted to cover the canvas. If it were a commercial canvas, I would have smoothed out the paint so it would look nicer in a shop. There was a second canvas - a pink one - that disappeared.

Monet painted these water lily pieces in several different colors - even green. This flower pot was inspired by one of the green paintings.

When I was first back in Austin, I still wasn't painting needlepoint canvases again yet, but started doing decorative accessories for Breed and Co. here and also the National Wildflower Research Center (Now Lady Bird's Research Center).

For Breed's I did a series of French Impressionist pots, including the saucers, which could be lids for enclosing a gift or candies or something of that nature. I used those little cheap bottles of acrylic paint - the Folk Art or Apple, made by Plaid Enterprises - great paint. It doesn't require a sealer, and I have pots that I painted many years ago that have been outside with plants in them - and they still look fresh.


These were really fun, and very fast to produce, as they were done almost totally with natural sponges, and just smeared onto the pot. The little lilies were put there quickly with a worn out paint brush - just brush strokes.

The next pot is from the painting of "Monet's Roses." It was extremely simple - done all with a wet sponge except for the little roses. Those are just dabbed on with an old soft brush.



















Then another water lilies design adapted to a terra cotta flower pot. These are just the simple clay pots you can get at your garden center. Incidentally, if you want to try this yourself, do NOT use the tube acrylics, as they dry with a plastic finish, and water will seep through the walls of the pot and cause blisters and paint peeling off. The bottled paint seems to breathe with the clay, so gives no trouble. Enough is enough for tonight. It's time for tea and a good movie.

This last pot, I'm ashamed to say, is a mystery, as I cannot remember who the painter was. I'm inclined to say it's from Cezanne, as his style with the outlined fruit says so. However, Van Gogh's style also shows in the blue pitcher and flowers. Oh well. The arrow is pointing to a place that is a white paint mark - not something shiny.

Oops! One more. This last one is one of my very favorites of the Van Gogh paintings - his "Flowering Almond Branch."

Another Site for Great Images and Color!

Before I get excited again and can't remember the name of the artist and the quilt - this is Laura Wasilowski of Illinois at the Houston Quilt Show, where she says she was a "woman packing iron." The quilt is named "Pressing Matters."

I found the site by total accident, and have spent several hours over a few days looking at things - there is a blog as well as a delightful web page.

This is an art quilt technique in which the fabric patches are cut and then fused onto a background, rather than sewn as they usually are. Then stitching embellishments follow.

Laura's graphics are delightful and colorful, and the text had me LOL in several places - especially the part about the Chicago School of Fusing. Her style ranges from whimsical to rather sophisticated and abstract.

Be sure to click on all of the "departments" on the front page of the web page - the "stitch-u-structions" is equally delightful and informative. It has a ten commandments for art quilters, which tells me we need one for needlepointers as well. (right now, I don't remember if this is on the blog or somewhere on the web page.)

The second picture is one of her large quilts from the "Housing Department." Equally wonderful are the Produce Section and Landscapes and Nature.

I won't attempt to show any more, as I could go on for several more pages about this wonderful version of needlework, which is a new one to me. Oh where have I been??

This lady dyes her own fabrics, I forgot to mention, and has them for sale, as well as threads. Anyway, do go see her web page at Art Fabrik and enjoy it. See also her blog, as there is a link to it on the web page.

Developing Patterns for Needlepoint

While working on this project and getting more and more addicted to it, I realized that many people don't know why we designers charge such high prices for some of it - it takes a long time and a lot of thought and effort to get it right!

As the ideas keep coming and I keep working, I'm getting excited about the possibilities here with these conical shapes. I think this form, rather than the painted canvas version, started with some Murano blown glass trees I saw in the catalog from The Art Institute of Chicago. These images kind of "implant" in the brain.

Anyway - playing around today with the poster board cone and the white paper, I decided I needed to do something with "tinsel" swags going in a continuous diagonal line around the tree. The first photo shows a squiggly freehand line I drew. I had tried several things that didn't work, but we won't go into that now.

Bear in mind I was sitting up on my bed, watching a movie on the DVD player, so the line isn't perfect. Opening these things out is sometimes the fun part, as it's a big surprise.


It occurred to me that the curved lines appear to have their ends on a straight line, which would be great for making sure they connect at the right place on the back. So - out came the green marker and the straight edge - and Voila!!

Now to put it onto canvas with this as a guide. Obviously, the canvas will be oriented with the point at the top, and it will only require running a fingernail across to get the marks in the correct places on the edges. (I'll show it on Freebies, etc. when I get it drawn correctly)



Next, I decided to be clever and see what I could do with using my diagonal laces and trims of two years ago - so first I drew a series of straight lines parallel to the edges of the tree, as the laces were worked on the 45 degree angle of the canvas.. I didn't measure or anything, as this is just an experiment.


I couldn't believe what it looked like on the back when I put it onto the poster board cone!!

You can see that the lines are drawn straight and parallel to the edges. Again, I didn't measure anything - just random straight lines made with my plastic ruler.

Looking at this also gives me another idea - using my laces that are stitched on the horizontal and vertical. It can be done with a bit more time playing with paper and scissors.

I won't stitch one in lace unless I come up with something different, as this lace binge lasted quite a while - I first did that in the early 70's, and then again about 12 years ago. I'm all laced out and drained dry, but still love it! (However, I'm working on replicating Bavarian lace in needlepoint for another "ethnic doll" I have planned.)



















I'm showing the diagonal laces for anyone who missed them, as they were made in May, 1998. The diagonal "rollie" shows how well they translate for something like this. I went on to do mini-stockings with "jeweled" chains - all kinds of fun and glittery things. I have put the booklet of these at a discount price on Freebies, etc. for anyone who wants to try it.

Needlepoint Topiaries: Ignorance was Bliss!

I wasn't thinking when I put the first topiary trees on canvas so long ago - as I was still doing everything in basketweave, and saw no problem with doing it so oriented. It also conserved canvas, as the bottom is very wide, and to put the top of the cone at the top of the canvas used more than doing it the way the photo shows.

I've been looking at it, and realize I would have difficulty stitching it, even in basketweave, as I want things upright for some reason. The first tree I stitched was sent to my mother, as she had announced that she was not going to put up a tree for Christmas that year - so I sent her my funny looking little needlepoint topiary.

I had just begun to design again, so was not acquainted with or aware of a lot of decorative stitches and novelty threads, so stitched it in baskeweave with Caron's Watercolours. The resulting diagonal stripes were not pretty. I did put little "jewels" of different colors on it with bump stitches of different sizes, and outlined them with Kreinik gold metallic braid.

Now that my ignorance of these things has somewhat been cured, and my stash of novelty threads is outrageous, I've had a lot of difficulty with the project of resurrecting the little trees. I have to be sure the background stitches lie correctly - no diagonally oriented ones would work. It was much easier when I was completely ignorant and unaware.

I decided to just practice on this first one, and am using DMC floss with Nobuko stitch - needle shaded. I stitched a very light green line in tent stitch where I'll put surface embellishement in the form of a swag of silk ribbon flowers or something spectacular - I had to have the line showing so it will be horizontal and also meet where it should when the cone is closed and finished.

In the first photo, I have stitched down to the first division for the needle blending - where I will begin using 1 ply of the darker shade and 3 of the lighter.

















The second picture shows continuing Nobuko background in the second group of shades. The work then needs to be turned upside down in order to continue Nobuko to fill in the space and keep it lined up as it should be. It stops where the light green line is, as that is the place for the horizontal swag or whatever will be put there on top of the background stitching later.


ADDENDUM/NOTE: Rather than remove this post and start over, I am leaving it almost as it was - to show where I erred in judgment. I should NEVER make a blog post late at night when my reasoning/thinking is impaired. My brain wires short circuit after about 7 p.m.


Anyway, what I did here with the lines for the needle blending and the lines for the swags isn't good, and makes some really ugly looking places in the Nobuko stitch background.

Therefore, as the "swag" lines - the blue ones which I stitched in light green, should also be used as the shading lines, as it works nicely for this.

Any irregularities will be covered with surface embellishment, and it also divides the space into four sections, which is adequate - my wish is to have the tree lighter at the top and darker at the bottom, so it doesn't really matter. By doing it this way, there will be NO need to turn it upside down to fill in spaces.

If this "needle blending" technique is new to you, visit The Cape Stitcher for Anne Stradal's explanations when she uses it for skies on her beautiful lighthouses.

It's very important to keep this background stitch going properly - so you can see by the lower left arrow where I started the next row. It's actually quite simple if you understand the structure of this stitch.

The 1 and 3 ply combo will continue down to the black line, and then change to 2 and 2 plies of each shade. If it's ghastly looking, I'll trash it and start something else. It has occurred to me that these things needn't be all Christmas trees - nor do they have to be green. I can see seasonal table centerpieces with little forests of them. I have put the pattern over on Freebies, etc. for you, as well as a tutorial on how to design your own.

Beautiful Surface Embellishment

This is a blog cruise to really enjoy, as Allison Aller (whose beautiful first book is ready to be "out" in February) just returned from the Houston Quilt Show with pictures of the art quilting represented there. (not all crazy quilt - lots of what I call "art quilts")

Allie's blog is one of the very first I found after I was given a computer and shown how to turn it on and off by two of my sons, (one of whom, my James, installed my internet and showed me how to do e-mail) and has been the mainstay of inspiration for my adaptations of art crazy quilt to needlepoint.

She also guided me, after we became fast friends on the internet, on how to "do" a blog, and made a gorgeous block for me to use in my very first article in Needlepoint Now - which was May/June three years ago.

The second picture is of a quilt named "Legendary Ladies and Fabulous Fans" by Barbara Warner. There is some genuinely beautiful art in this show, and Allie has several posts, and I think more to come.

The Quilt show has quite a variety of styles!! It's worth a look - and do give yourself plenty of time! I have found a tremendous amount of visual inspiration and methods for embellishing the surface of needlepoint in these CQ blogs.

I am not a quilter, although I have loved over the years putting traditional patchwork onto canvas for needlepoint, and now am mesmerized by the embellished CQ. I'm eagerly awaiting February and Allie's book - it's total Eye Candy as well as fine instruction! See her at Allie's in Stitches.

Embellishment on Needlepoint: A Different Sort!

Embellishing on the surface of stitched needlepoint has been an interesting exercise and experiment for me for the last few years, but mine have been the art crazy quilt format - in which I was also able to try out different stitches and threads that were new to me, as well as practicing such techniques as silk ribbon embroidery and other embroidery stitches.

I was delighted to see Anne Stradal (The Cape Stitcher) straying from her norm lately, and doing adaptations of Sailor's Valentines. I was unfamiliar with these, so also enjoyed her history behind them, as well as imaginative use of threads and sea shells.

Be sure to go watch this develop, as she is now starting the third one, which looks like a wonderful thing in the making! The photo is just showing the beginning of #3, so be sure to see it progress.

Next, I found this delightful tutorial by way of Sharon B's PINTANGLE - the painted button tutorial by "Older Rose," in which she shows how to prepare and paint buttons.

She also has a site for selling her beautiful work, and I'm thinking what wonderful things to either paint for yourself for canvas embellishment, or you could buy them already painted. This is worth spending some time looking!

A Very Beautiful and Inspiring Blog

I say often that I enjoy looking at the blogs of designers and "doers" of other textile and graphic arts for imprinting great images into my head. This thing of "cross pollination" sometimes brings up the most amazing things that I wish I had found several years ago - just by clicking at random on someone's blog list.

I found this amazingly, stunningly beautiful blog about a week ago, and can't seem to stay away from it. I will also say that her blog list is dangerous unless you have many many hours to entertain yourself looking at incredible work and lots of what we call "eye candy."

This first picture is from her needlepoint gallery, as she also puts her graphic and watercolour designs onto canvas. The second picture is the "sketch" she used to create the needlepoint canvas.

I chatted with Cathy briefly when I e-mailed for permission to "klep" pictures from her and show her on my blog, and wasn't really surprised when she said she's totally self educated in this art thing.

A true artist, born with the "gift" usually is impaired when the wrong art teacher takes over. I've seen this happen too often with very gifted children when the art teacher informs them that trees aren't blue. The spontaneity goes away, and true creativity is stifled. Just learning how to use an art medium is enough - then spontaneity of design and execution takes over in a most delightful way.

Actually, the same principle should be applied to needlepoint stitching inspiration. It's best to learn stitches - how they look, how to execute them, and which types of fibers show them to their best advantage for the intended purpose. THEN decide for yourself how to use them and where on a painted canvas for best effect.

There are blogs "out there" that have dreadful stitching showing, and it's so easy to get these images in the mind before you realize it, and have your own stitching creativity stifled or distorted!

Anyway - so much for why I love cruising gorgeous and inspirational blogs, and why I justify the time. (Actually, I'll use any excuse for doing this). Be sure to visit Cathy's blog at One Pink Goose. There is also a web page with galleries of her work in different media. Really really fine things. The spiral needlepoint is from an older post - go to her achives and click on April, 2008, to see this and more!!

Also, either click on "Faraway Hills" on the side bar, or go HERE to look at more of Cathy's amazing artwork. If I were remotely into plagiarism, this is where I would land and get images - they are wonderful to look at. The little picture is from Gallery 5.

Needlepoint Design and Inspiration: Shading (more)

More photographs fell out of an old file folder - and these I was glad to find. The Virgin of the Guadalupe dates back about 12 years to when I was doing Saints - (starting with St. Clare for needleworkers, and going through St. Monica for mothers and St. Catherine for young girls).

Guadalupe has always been well loved in Texas, and this one was very popular in my needlepoint line when I was still wholesaling. I was looking at her this morning, and realized that I like the position of her body and placement of the roses at her feet - and think it would be a good model for my planned "birthday angels" with the appropriate flowers. She would need a different hair do and dress colors, of course- and some wings.

Originally, I had intended for the roses to be done in silk ribbon embroidery, but that long ago, I had a difficult time convincing anyone to do it. Oh well. This might work on the angel guardian for June!

Next is a chair seat I painted for a woman a long time ago when I frist started designing painted canvas again. She was a "traditional type" needlepointer, and it was delightful having an appreciative audience for my efforts at painting shading that could be stitched easily.

As I remember, she brought me a magazine picture with the maple leaves, and also a picture of the toad that she wanted included. I first made a white drawingi paper pattern of the chair seat itself, and then freehand drew the design to fill it well. (can't do this any more).

As it was to be a chair seat, it had to be stitched in Persian wool, so I checked on the colors and ranges within each so I could mix paint accordingly.

The same was true on the toad. I always had to make sure also that there were as many shades of a color within the range as I needed to paint.
This is the kind of painting I used to love doing, but would never reproduce it - too tedious the second time.

You can look at the toad up close and see that, even though he is shaded to look rather realistic, one can actually see the divisions in the shades of the main color. He would be easy to stitch! I don't think designers consider this enough these days - which leads to confusion. (and "goop," to use GayAnn's term.)

The next photo was for the same lady - it was a stamp from the National Wildlife Federation.
My great challenge here was to make the frog's skin appear to be shiny, and also produce the effect of the leg dangling down below the surface of the water- I had to really check my available thread colors for this.
We opted to use DMC floss, as in silk there weren't enough shades or colors to do it. This is where sometimes people run awry - using whatever they find that matches the color of an area. This also leads to an unattractive stitched canvas, as it adds too much unneeded texture to the piece.

I'm almost finished cleaning out the files, and have found a few things that might be worth reproducing - but, as I've said, I'm now old and lazy and no longer capable of the kind of drawing and painting I did in past years. I'm enjoying the little bright simple things lately, and using more metallic threads and beads and PVV and other such lovely fun things!

I didn't find the three canvases I painted from Monet's waterlilies - the most difficult thing I ever painted, and the greatest challenge - but I was pleased with the result. I painted them for myself, of course, as they are under ownership and copyright - but I never got around to stitching them. I do, however, plan to do a few from the Matisse JAZZ series - I love those, and they are flat and simple! One could even do a few decorative stitches on them.

Designing the Painted Canvas: Adapting Celadon

I had resolved about five years ago, when my son once again asked, to finish this canvas for him for his impending birthday - but, once again, put it away without doing it. I found it in one of the deep layers of a box I was investigating a few days ago (his birthday has just now passed again), and actually found the threads for it as well. It's much farther along than I remembered, so is actually "doable."

This picture is upside down, but I only just now noticed it. It's so busy, it doesn't really matter for this purpose, except that the pomegranites in the center look rather strange. (symbol of fertility).

Anyway, about 14 years ago, he gave me for Christmas a wonderful collection of antique porcelains to jump start a new design venture for me. This gorgeous Chinese Celadon bowl, dated ca.1820, was in it.

As he is the only one of my six children who loves my work and understands it, I gave him the choice of one that I would stitch for framing for his office. He chose this one, so I have kept the bowl as well to surprise him. I had apparently almost finished it when he started his own law firm with his two law school roommates - and I didn't think this one would do for the new office, so put it down for a while. A very long while. Oh dear.
The pomegranites I chose for the center of the canvas in this adaptation were inside the bowl in the center. A beautiful detail! the black spots are flaws in the glaze.


I took the main part of the canvas design from the outside of the bowl.

The next picture shows the butterfly - which is the symbol of bliss and fidelity for marriage. I think maybe this bowl was intended for a wedding present/blessing, as it also has the "coins" for prosperity.

















I was looking at this last night, and amazed at the fact that pre-digital camera/computer, color copier, etc. for over 35 years I did everything totally freehand. I'm not really sure now that I could start from scratch with a piece like this bowl and make it look right. I have become lazy and spoiled, and I think it's ruined my drawing skills. Hand/eye coordination isn't what it used to be. Oh well. Time marches on.

The next picture shows the center of the canvas mostly stitched - still upside down. It's amazing how the stitching brings a canvas to life.



This canvas is done entirely in basketweave, as it's way too busy for any other kind of stitch.

The first "coin" picture shows it not yet finished, as I haven't done the outline yet. Fortunately, although most of the outline was already done on this canvas, I hadn't worked but a tiny bit of one of the coins in gold. I had to take it out, as it was way pre-002Vintage gold, and entirely too shiny and bright. The V braid (#12) is perfect - has just the right "gleam" of gold Again - notice how the stitching fills up the canvas and brings it to life.

This used to be the wonder of stitching the painted canvas! Also, as a designer, we were always aware of what we called "entertainment value." That is, a good balance between design for challenge, and background for relaxation and rather mindless stitching. I never liked outlining, but my sister did. She hated backgrounds, but I preferred them. I had four more children than she did, so needed more decopression and nerve steadying..


Doing outlining was an exercise in self-discipline for me. Thank goodness I had already done this part of this canvas when I put it away.
The last picture is one segment with a butterly - almost finished with background, etc. Again, it's amazing how a painted canvas comes to life with the stitching - this is what keeps us going just a little bit farther.



My reward now today will be to stitch more on Joe's Celadon AFTER I finish my painting that has to be done. He's on vacation now on Cape Cod - and will be very pleased and surprised when he gets back - assuming he'll be gone his usual two or three weeks.

Watching Beautiful Stitching

This piece is worth watching as it develops - Jan Fitzpatrick at Thread Medley has now started a smaller piece for a bit of relief from the large rug adaptation she's been working on for a while.

You can go there and watch it almost from "day 1." Her explanations of how and why she does each thing is really a great learning experience, as well as very interesting. Beautiful work and beautiful colors!

I think a good term for these things would be "simple elegance."

Images to Inspire: More Beautiful Blogs

As I say so often, it's best to have POSITIVE images implanted in the mind, rather than looking at junk and "goop." As a designer, I know well that ideas that pop into my head sometime in the future, are strongly influenced by these images in some way.

I've been strongly influenced by the wonderful art crazy quilters and other great fiber artiss, whose blogs were the very first I found four years ago when I first was given a computer (and finally learned to use it without shedding tears.)

I'm not a quilter, but these people are doing art work - creating- and not using something mass produced in the thousands and then being told exactly where to put the needle with which thread via someone else's ideas of stitching.

The ones I look at daily have a wonderful talent and ability for using color and texture to lead the eye in a path where they want it to go.

The first photo is a piece Allison Aller is showing right now, and the entire process of putting it together is on her blog - do go see it, as it's an amazing piece of art and superb needlework with a lot of imagination.

The next two pictures are from a lovely project being worked by Lin Moon of Purple Fan.

She has made art bras for a project for raising funds for breast cancer research, which I think has been continuing for several years (Allison Aller sent me a calendar featuring these about four years ago when I first met her.)

These are absolutely beautiful - imaginative, innovative - true works of art. Whimsical, beautiful, and the colors are magnificent. (I find great color schemes looking at some of this).

There is a wonderful mermaid on this bra, and Lin Moon is showing the development of the design and it's embellishment.




This is the sort of thing that will send me right "back to the drawing board" for another of my own needlepoint pieces in which I've enjoyed using surface embellishment - as the art quilters do. I love attempting to replicate their stitches and effects! (but not copy them).

The cluster of flowers is also from Purple-Fan, and is her work inspired by Sharon B's (Pintangle) TAST work this year (Take A Stitch Tuesday)

This is "Raised Cup Stitch," which was last week's (I think) stitch. I haven't had time to do them, except the cloud filling I used on an ornament, but I never miss a Tuesday looking and learning! This raised cup thing already has me inspired with ideas!!

This is a lot of pretty stuff, but there is one more that is enchanting, that I only found today. Painted Threads. Again, I only found this one yesterday, and am hooked - it will be a regular with morning coffee for me. Take a look at her techniques and her use of color- again, it has already triggered some ideas for needlepoint design in my head.

Better this than spending my limited time checking out "goop," or what I call "eye shattering messes," which is seen on too many of the needlepoint stitching blogs. Those get me nowhere but upset and frustrated. I'm for the positive images!!