Whitefish River Landscape

Whitefish River Landscape

I showed you the start for this landscape last week. It’s based on a photo of the trees in winter on the Whitefish river. I really like the way the orange branches look against the sky and in the reflections in the water.

Here’s the photo I took and then the layout of the felt on the right. I used what silk I already had to represent the sky and the water and then added a little wool for the land and for the large tree trunk on the left. The felted piece ended up about 8″ x 11″.

I then started stitching the most distant background features. I forgot to add any support behind the felt at this point but later on added a heavy weight Pellon interfacing to support some of the heavier machine stitching.

Now to add some sheer orange fabric for the trees. I also stitched in dark brown along the edge of the river and the shore.

Then on to adding in the trees along the shoreline. I did baste down the orange sheer fabric to hold it in place while stitching. I added more stitching for the reflections of the trees.

I cut back some of the orange in the trees to show the sky in places and added a second layer of sheer orange over some of the branches. I then stitched more branches in orange thread. I did the same for the reflected trees.

Now on to the large foreground tree. I added some bark details with my darkest brown thread.

And then stitched in the large foreground branches. I started from the top dark branches and moved downward. I added one layer of sheer fabric over the yellow in the bottom left hand corner by the trunk to tone it down just a little. After looking at this for a while, I decided to make a few small changes. The right hand corner was drawing my attention to much with the background trees. There was too much contrast between the white clouds and the dark branches. Also, the shoreline wasn’t quite right.

Lighter brown stitching was added to the background trees and to the shoreline. I used a small amount of oil pastel to make a shoreline reflection in the water. And it was finished. Or at least finished for now. I will need to find a background cotton fabric for it’s matte and then get it framed. On to the next landscape!

For those of you who wanted to see the end result of Penny Peters 25 Million Stitches piece, here it is. You can read more about it here.

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19 thoughts on “Whitefish River Landscape

  1. The landscape is great Ruth. The layering you did really works, it gives it so much depth. Penny Peters piece is truly wonderful. It has so much feeling in it.

    1. Thanks Ann! Layering is definitely the key in landscapes. The first stages are hard and make you think it’s going to be a disaster but you just have to keep going. 🙂

      Yes, I love Penny’s piece too.

  2. Great landscape, Ruth. It’s very interesting to follow your though processes as you develop the picture and your finished piece has a strong sense of place, which I really like.

  3. Your tree stitching is amazing! Beautiful landscape Ruth.

    Thank you for posting a photo of Penny’s finished piece – it’s incredible.

    We’d love to sign up for the weekly newsletter, thank you.

    1. Thanks 😊

      Penny’s piece is definitely wonderful and I was happy to share.

      Did you get signed up for the newsletter OK?

    1. Thanks Kim! It is interesting to me as well to see the changes as I move forward from background to foreground. Sometimes, unexpected things happen 😉

  4. It has turned out well Ruth, with great Layered depth & different elements of interest.
    Penny Peter’s piece is beautiful but quite haunting.
    I’m about to sign up.

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