03.11.09
Posted in Design Theory at 7:00 am by deRomilly
In photography, depth of field refers to the distance between the camera lens and the object to be photographed so that the subject remains in focus. When you change the depth of field you can decide whether the subject or the background has more clarity. It’s an advantage in SLR cameras that you can play with this.
Block one with many (not all) seams stitched!
Recently I have been focusing my depth of field on backgrounds in my art. Simple is beautiful. but as I discover some of the more detailed and deep layering in mixed media art I want to figure out how to apply that to my tixtile work. A while back I took Sharon Boggin’s Sumptuous Surfaces class — which set me on this path. This year I am taking her Encrusted Crazy Quilting to continue this line of thinking. What better format for adding this kind of depth than crazy quilting? I stitch slowly, so I can’t promise you quick results on my original blocks (though I seem to be moving faster than I originally expected!)
In addition to the quilting class, I took Kelly Kilmer’s Prompt a Day mixed media journaling class last month. Can’t justify the time this month since I havent’ done all the prompts from LAST month yet! But what I’m finding is that the more layered the background, the sharper, and more prominent the focal image appears — a way of adjusting the depth of field in hand-made art as well as photography. This should be an interesting experiment.
I highly recommend sidestepping out of your normal media choice and play for a while. The results to your focus may surprise you.
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03.06.09
Posted in Stitching Genres at 7:42 pm by deRomilly
That I forgot I had done!!
I was trying to pull stuff together to start embellishing those blocks for the Encrusted Crazy Quilt class… And found a block that I’d started and not finished a while ago. There were two little seams left to finish. So as a warm up to stitching the new one, I finished it.
It’s very simple as crazy blocks go, intended as a large pillow for the living room. Made out of cotton decor fabric I was given by an interior designer from old samples (make friends — they give you WONDERFUL fabric!!) and embroidered entirely in cotton 6 strand floss, I think it will make a lovely pillow. Detail photos below. Click any of them to view larger.
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02.25.09
Posted in Design Theory at 7:00 am by deRomilly
For years I designed little cross stitch designs, all the while claiming I couldn’t draw. And I still hold the belief that not drawing shouldn’t keep you from designing pieces you want on your wall, especially if you can’t find a designer who designs just exactly what you want.
Options for the non-drawing designer!
- Make geometric counted work by making shapes on graph paper and repeating, rotating and connecting them. Yes, this is how I come up with some of my more elaborate pillow patterns, as well as my small motifs for my samplers.
- “Specialty” stitches make nice band samplers, vertical, horizontal, and round on different fabrics, worked in squares or shapes, and so on.
- Free embroidery can be designed from your own drawings, yes, but you can also combine sources of images from copyright-free materials, for example, Dover pictorial archives (royalty free), or other clipart. If it’s for personal use, you might work needlework from a coloring book page (note: be very aware of who owns the copyright of any image you plan to use on something to sell or display, whether it’s your stitching design or a finished object. If in doubt, write to the artist or the publisher or to be really safe, both, and ask permission. The worst they can do is say no or ask for a portion of the sales for royalties, and most artists are extremely friendly when approached politely. You might even make a new friend!) Personally, I still sometimes use the Dover series, especially the book and CD combos – the computer makes it really easy to copy, paste, resize, rotate, and otherwise mess with the image until it’s something I want to stitch.
Note: Dover also will send you sample pages weekly of some of their pictorial archives if you sign up for them at the Dover Website click on Free Samples in the menu bar at the top.
- The Dover and clipart method can also be used to create cross stitch by tracing the outline onto graph paper and then playing wth colored pencils to color in the appropriate squares. This takes practice, but actually is the same method I use with my own artwork when designing. This can also work with photos you have taken, and you can also use a program such as PatternMaker by Hobbyware, or PC Stitch to do this playing quicker, with DMC or Anchor colors, and then print a chart directly from the software. These programs will also take your artwork or photo and convert it directly into a needlework chart, but I don’t recommend that method – the design generated is usually huge, uses a huge number of thread colors one or two stitches at a time to visually blend the color in the photo. Basically you get a huge mosaic design that once stitched you need to stand across the room from to actually see the image. It can be an interesting exercise, it can be a nice starting point if you want to clean it up by hand, but I find that tracing the outlines and choosing my own colors produces a better product in the long run.
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02.21.09
Posted in Design Theory at 9:39 pm by deRomilly
I was right. Orange is difficult to find in spring in a way that *I* consider pretty.
There are a lot of construction flags. I was trying to avoid actually taking pictures of oranges or carrots. I didn’t manage it. But here we go:
The orange sweatshirt on the construction guy with all the orange traffic cones in his truck:
First I felt the need to cheat and use the doodle I did on an orange scratch pad at work:
I resorted to photographing the ads:
I found the orange lid of the glue at the office:
Then I noticed that the book I’m knitting from has a great deal of orange in it:
And I finally resorted to food: oranges, and then noticed the baker’s chocolate in the baking cupboard of things I can no longer eat:
And I took a close up of the bag for the oranges because as well as being a beautiful deep orange, the texture was just so cool!
So. Did YOU find anything neat and orange this week? Trackback or post a comment so I can see, too!
Edited to add: Next week… Yellow!
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