I finally decided that I was going to sort out my photos once and for all and at last make some pictures from the 1000s of inspiring shots of all sorts of random things that I've taken. Well, I got about half an hour into it then realised that it is a really big task which will take a lot of time and a bit of planning, and that perhaps I'd just make something up instead! :)
I enjoy working from my imagination using subjects such as landscapes, flowers and birds because anything goes :)
I chose to make a vase of flowers this time. This is a subject that will never run out of possibilities!
I started by laying down a piece of open weave fabric over white fibres to make a sort of canvas then added a piece of turquoise silk as the vase then added a few other bits before I decided it needed some depth in the background so I took it all off and added some vertical strips of open weave dark blue fabric. Not sure how well this worked in the end but you've got to try these things out! I also added some mini boucle yarn in spirals for flowers. I really liked the way this felted in and will use it again for outlines etc.
After the picture had dried after felting I was unhappy with it but couldn't decide why. After a while I realised that the turquoise was clashing with and draining the rest of the colours. They didn't work together. So I picked a piece of navy fabric with white spots on it to make a new vase, and attached it with bondaweb over the original vase. It was improved straightaway.
I didn't want to overdo this picture, as I sometimes do, so took a few days to place things on and take them off and give it some thought. I also tried a few stitch ideas. I thought it would look great to add some dark blue running stitch round the edge of the light blue leafy stems but it actually made them look too small and messy. It's a shame because it looked nice up close to start with then I had to take it all off because standing back it just didn't work.
I placed a viewinder (two L-Shaped pieces of white card) around the picture to help isolate the picture from my ever-messy work table. This adds clarity for me. I thought something else was not working and after experimenting found it was the shape of the vase. I rounded it off and instantly liked it better.
I finished off with a few hand stitches, a few circles of silk, some ribbon and a bit of yellow leather.
I'm quite pleased with how it turned out in the end and enjoyed the process of experimenting with different things along the way. It all feeds in to future projects, and also sparks more ideas :)
