06.28.10
Posted in Design Theory at 7:00 am by deRomilly
Color experiment
Color has always been tough for me… I tend to use analogous color schemes — like yellow-green, green and green-blue, so I can avoid the entire issue!
Color experiment
But I spent quite a bit of time learning – once you can pair value (how light or dark an area is) with color-brightness and contrast, and complimentary colors, the world opens up. I play with all of this in paint first these days – no intention of creating finished or resolved work from them, just little experiments in what works and why, and my color choices in threads need to be ripped out much less now, although I have discovered that what works in thread on a small scale may not work when enlarged — for example, three colors that work as a small face don’t necessarily work together when enlarged to an 8 1/2 by 11 inch piece of work. This seems to happen more in thread than in paint for me, at least right now. Still working that out.
Color experiment
I’ve been trying to learn this academically for a long while now – but the more I read, or even pushed buttons for (online resources follow) the less I understood. It finally took getting a bunch of cheap acrylic paint and doing it myself to actually grok it. My experiments may be ugly, but they did what they were intended to do! (I used quite a few of them as backgrounds in my journal, or I’d post more of the photos here.)
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06.23.10
Posted in General at 3:04 pm by deRomilly
I’ve been writing on another site a lot about Help files, and reading the manual, and learning new software. It got me to thinking about how and where I go for help with needlework these days.
Now that we have fewer and fewer local needlework stores around, I wonder, what are people doing when they have a problem, or can’t figure something out in a chart?
My response was, for many years, find an expert. And I could usually pop over to the local needlework store, where there was an entire staff and customer base of experts. Sometimes they were confused by the strange things I asked (I was never into doing things the “normal” way: usually I wanted information on medieval or 18th century techniques, and there weren’t as many resources then as now…), but I never had a time where by brainstorming between a group of us we couldn’t come up with a solution. Now, though?
Where do I go to solve problems or learn something totally new?
- My local EGA chapter, which, unfortunately, has also been dwindling in size. It’s time to renew my membership – I’ve been away too long.
- A group of friends who also stitch – if one of us can’t figure it out, usually someone else, or all ofus together can.
- Workshops. This usually entails travel these days, and a lot of the lovely big conventions are gone
(CATS comes to mind…)
- But you know, I also still go hang out at the needlepoint shop, even though I rarely do canvas work (I DO clean them out of threads regularly, though!) And I’m starting to think I need to make the 40 mile trek to my only remaining not-so local cross stitch store more often.
What do you do for needlework companionship and help these days?
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06.11.10
Posted in General at 12:48 pm by deRomilly
And watch out what you ask for… Issue: fear of stitching…or anything else, for that matter! Recently I’ve had some issues around procrastination paralyzation – the wanting to get up and do something but not getting around to it, for whatever the thing to do, there is always some sort of procrastination technique that I can use to avoid it! So I decided to do a little bit of talking to the monster in charge of holding me back to see what I could do about it… This doesn’t’ directly relate to my stitching or dancing, except that my stitching and dancing was suffering because of it.
I started asking myself, “so what’s holding me back? Time? no. Money? no. Fear? ah. there’s the little monster hiding in the corner. Come on out, little guy! I’m not going to tell you to go away! M-Monster, R-Romilly.
A little fuzzy red critter slowly crawls out of the shadows… Wow he’s tiny, but boy does he have long legs!
M – Y’y'you’re not?
R – Nope – you’ve got as much right to be here as I do, and you, I’m guessing, don’t want me – us – to get hurt!
M – NO! I don’t! We need to be safe and happy!
R – But when I’m scared all the time, I’m definitely not happy! And I don’t FEEL safe! Besides. It’s lonely.
M – But you’ve got your sister, and the EO, and the cats… Why can’t you be happy hiding where no one bad can hurt you?
R – Because then I miss all the fun – remember the dune buggy rides in kindergarten?
M – No. We didn’t go on any.
R – I know – because we were scared it wouldn’t be as fun as swimming – that we’d waste a day.
M – Ummmmmm…
R – Remember when we got to go in our teens?
M – Yeah – it was fun, but we thought it was probably more fun at 5 years old and in the desert, not on suburban streets in Seattle.
R – Right.
M- But what about mean people?
R – You mean people who will tell me I can’t write and my designs are icky and too expensive?
M – YEAH!
R – Remember how you said we’ve got all those people and the cats? We’ve also got a bunch of other friends…
M – ?!
R – They’ll all tell us we don’t stink, and remind us that we’re loved!
M – But mean words hurt!
R – Yeah, they hurt, but so did running into that car when we were learning to ride a bike — but how fun was the wind in our faces when we got it down? Worth it?
M – WAY worth it!!! WHEEEEEE!!! Bike Riding! YAY!
R – So maybe if we thought of show day as Ride day?
M – Around Green Lake!!!! really really fast! ZZOOOM!!!
R – If we’re going to do that, I need to tune up the bike so we can stay safe.
M – Um… okay? What’s the bike?
R – That would be the book that needs edited and illustrated. And the webpage for it, so you can have a bike, too.
M – Oh. OK. You tune up the bikes and I’ll pack a picnic. With cookies! Whee!!!
Little monster is suddenly running around the room playing airplane. I’m a bit worried that the picnic will consist of JUST cookies! but we’re off!
Notes:
Yes. I’m writing a book. You’d think that a professional technical writer wouldn’t fret about this, but I am. I’m trying to take the fear out designing or adapting needlework designs for your own purposes. If you’re interested in updates on the status, I’ll be adding those to the newsletter, as well as some preview information as I get going. And you’ll get the 5-part creativity in cross stitch class as well for signing up! Sign up in the sidebar, or click for a bigger sign up form!
The technique is adapted from something Havi Brooks does every so often when she talks to her monsters.
If you’re interested in talking to your monsters, you might look at Havi’s Monster Coloring book, too. (yes, this is an affiliate link: but if you don’t want me to get a commission on it, you can get there from the link on her name in the last paragraph, too!)
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