Project 3, Stage 6, exercise 1

By mistake I worked on stage 6 while I had not yet done stage 5. Pictures of stage 5 will come later this week.
This exercise was about combining color with texture. As you can see I worked on a black background fabric and I used different yellows, blues and green - some a bit darker, some a bit lighter. Next to pearl cotton 8 and embroidery floss I also used some yellow eyelash yarn. I did not have this in green or blue. The whole piece was done with French knots. Some a bit more loose than others.

What I like about this sample is the difference it shows between areas where a lot of knots are close together and the areas where more of the background is shown. I especially like the centre where the 3 different color groups meet. In some areas it is difficult to see whether that stitch is green or whether it is blue :-). I love this effect of color mixing.
There is only one thing I do not like about this embroidery stitch and that is that it is time consuming. This sample is 6"x6" and it took me more than 4 hours to create.
On purpose I limited myself to only these 3 different kind of threads. This way I could create a unity and I was afraid that if I added lots of different threads it would more become a showpiece of everything I had in stock. I even had some doubts about the eyelash yarn.

Project 3, Stage 4, Exercise 1

It is some time ago since I last posted, but computer issues took up most of my time. I have a new one and that meant transferring files and reorganising everything. But that is done so I can now spend time again on this course.
This exercise is about color and the moods the colors can represent. These contrasting words I 'translated' into colors and this is what they look to me:



I know that cultures respond different to colors and even in our Western cultures there are opposite words which can be represented into the same colors like love and hate. Many people associate both colors with red. Even in the examples I used some of them are a bit alike. The association with active, young and healthy can be done in the same color.



Project 3, stage 3, recording Color exercise 1

This exercise is about mixing colors and the effect which has adding white or black to the color. I did this exercise with both acrylic paints and with water color paints. The first picture is done with watercolors. I used my waterbrush to apply these colors. This is a brush which  as a compartment for water in the brush. By squeezing the compartment, the water flows into the hairs of the brush. I love this brush as it makes color mixing much easier than with a regular brush. The first section of the colors was done by adding white to the color. The second section has black added to it.

As you compare the water color with the acrylic one you see especially when black is added, that more variations are visible with the water color than with the acrylic paint. The precision of adding black is for me more difficult with acrylic paint.

And I know that if I would do this color with procion dyes, I would get better visible gradation. Adding even a tenth of a gram of black results in a different color.

Stage 3 - exercise 1

With this exercise marks will be used to create surface textures, based on pictures. I decided to work with these 2 pictures. The first one is from the old mills area in Minneapolis:

The whole picture would be a bit too much :-). With a viewing frame I picked out this square to work with:

                           

The other picture is from a pile of wood blocks:

Again using the viewing frame I selected a smaller area:

Next step is to use marks to create an equivalent of the picture on paper, focussing on the surface texture of the picture. And this is what I made. Mind you drawing is not my strongest side <gr>.
In this drawing of the mills area I used pencil:

And in the 2nd one water colors.

Again the first one I used pencils:

And water colors in the second one.