
Green Man – Guest Post by Carole G.
This is a guest post by Carole G. one of our forum members. You can follow her here:
https://www.facebook.com/BagsaLicious/
https://craftybeetle.wordpress.com/
I love forests, the magical paths that lead you through oaks, birch, beech and ash and the faces, there are always faces to be seen in tree trunks.
It is this imaginary along with my curiosity about the ‘Greenman’ and the many ways he is depicted that has taken me along a path of my own. A path of experimenting with leaves, print, shapes to eventually create my own ‘Greenman’.
Part of this journey including using paints, hand dyed fabric, freehand machine stitch, trapping fabrics together with stitch, I even tried trapunto, my final attempt was using merino and bits of fabric with stitch then cutting out shapes. I’m not particularly happy with the final piece but I adored the journey and will revisit this in the future.
First of all I decided to paint paper and print leaf shapes on to it.
Then I decided to use sun dyes to create leaf shapes on fabric ( I haven’t tried this on felt but I think it would work the same way) and highlight the shapes using a freehand machine stitch technique called trapunto.
My next leg of the journey was to explore ways using freehand stitch and trapped merino and other fibres to create leaf like images.
Moving on I decided on the trapped fibre approach and made up a few leaves before trying them out as a Greenman face.
Moving on I needed a backing for this man of the woods, so I painted up some burlap to keep a rustic feel going and hung him from a branch.
You can follow my creative meanderings on both:
https://www.facebook.com/BagsaLicious/
https://craftybeetle.wordpress.com/
9 thoughts on “Green Man – Guest Post by Carole G.”
Greenmen usually look a bit fierce but yours looks like a gentle soul – much nicer!
Love the colours you used and it makes him look like an autumnal greenman.
A very interesting project journey and much learned.
Thank you Lyn and Annie, the journey was as much fun as the final piece
Thanks for the post Carole! I always like to see how a piece was created and your leaves are fantastic. And the background of painted burlap fits perfectly.
Thank you, I was trying to create a rustic look.
Thanks for sharing your creative journey, I think Greenman turned out very well. I idea of the painted burlap and the dimensional and textural qualities. But I have a feeling you’re not finished yet. 😉
You know me too well Marilyn, I think is part of another journey now
I am a big fan of the Green Man, I have a couple in my garden. Thanks for sharing yours Carole, he turned out very colourful and mystical.
I love the idea of the eyes peeping out of the foliage and you know you are being watched but not quite sure
So many different interesting techniques along the way! Great final piece too, Carole 🙂