I’ve had a couple of ideas rattling around in my head for a new series of ten 6″ x 6″ pieces. I can use them at the summer showing at the NovelTea Cafe in July/August and whatever doesn’t sell there (I’m not expecting much will) will be ready for the 2023 Christmas show in Tatamagouche at the Ice House Gallery (I know Brandt is planning on doing 6 x 6 for a second year – last year’s show looked terrific!).

I have an interesting collection of seascape photos I’ve taken over the years. I have pulled them from my digital photo collections and stuck them in a folder on my desktop. The idea would be to crop each photo to 6.4″ x 6.4″ (that would allow the print to just come sightly over the edges of a 6 x 6 canvas), print each photo on fabric, back it will fusible interfacing to stabilize it so I can thread paint the image. I haven’t tried that yet – but it’s on my to-do list.

I also have a collection of interesting flower photos. At first I thought I’d try printing those on fabric as well, but the paper print I did the other day wasn’t vibrant enough to stand as a background for thread painting. Instead, I decided to try a single flower image, cropped, from which I could piece a flower on a pale background.

Today I cut a 9″ square from some pale linen I had in my stash. I used a heat erasable pen to mark a 6″ square at the centre. I selected some fabrics, then started cutting. I arranged the pieces of fabric, pinned them in place and began thread painting.

This piece took me about five hours to make. I took a couple of shortcuts since I was just playing around. I didn’t bother putting fusible web behind the fabric before cutting it out – a big mistake! I’ve ended up with fraying edges because there is no glue to secure the layers to one another. Next, the leaf at the bottom is in a bad location – I must remember to keep enough space free on the background for a signature. Also, the beige linen background is too “flat,” too “dull.” I definitely want to use to what I have left of the light coloured raw silk I used for the previous 6 x 6 works.

I also want to expand the flower to 7″ – a half inch more on each side so the petals and leaves wrap around the sides of the canvas. In this prototype I cropped the flower and leaves at 6″ – which makes it difficult to get a clean line at the canvas edge. I also need to think about embroideries specific for each flower centre. By the time I got to adding an embroidery here I knew I was just trying out the overall idea and didn’t worry too much about placement. I am going to have to be more precise with whatever I do at the centre of each flower.

I mounted the finished flower on a 6 x 6 canvas, then took the finished piece to show my friend Deb. She thought the idea was definitely worth pursuing. Because I like Rudbeckia flowers I will do another one for the collection.

Nothing on for tomorrow – I intend to do a second prototype taking into account what I learned today.