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Slow Stitch Progress – Filling in Negative Space

Slow Stitch Progress – Filling in Negative Space

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Here’s the progress on my slow stitch project. I am still stitching away about 15-30 minutes per day on this piece.

The last time I showed you, it looked like this.

First, I added some more darker values with the deep purple thread in the mid ground area. Then because I thought that I needed a little more contrast in that area, I added some deeper red orange to look like more foliage.

Then on to working on the foreground trees. Here, I was looking at negative spaces and giving some darkness and shadow to delineate the tree trunks. I am continuing to use seed stitch and used a neutralized dark green in between the tree trunks. Since the stitches are so small, this definitely is in the slow stitch category. I am still working on the right hand side. Once that’s finished, I have more tree trunks “to pull out” on the left side.

And here’s how the entire piece looks as of now. I may need to darken up the shadows between the foreground trees and I have to decide what to do on the left hand bottom corner. The foreground trees will get some stitched leaf additions too. Plus the foreground will need work in front of the trees. I am definitely enjoying this project more since I’m not trying to force working on it for longer stretches.

 

 

Autumn Nuno Hand Stitch Update

Autumn Nuno Hand Stitch Update

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The last time I updated you on my autumn nuno landscape it looked like this. I have been slowly continuing to add more color into the middle background area with seed stitch. I added a lot of red orange as well as green and even some dark purple.

Here you can see more of the red orange additions and the purple that I used for a shadow color. I decided to use the dark purple instead of brown or black. Black is definitely too stark and I think the cool color in the middle of the red orange gives it more “pop”.

Here is the area where I added more green. You can see on the left that I haven’t finished filling in the green.

And here is the piece as it is at this point. I still need to add some more shadow shapes in the red orange swath and perhaps a bit more definition of the aspen trunks in the distance. Can you see the area that will become the foreground aspen trees? It is finally looking more landscape to me. So I will keep on with my slow stitching and update you on my progress next month.

Autumn Nuno Slow Stitch – Considering Value

Autumn Nuno Slow Stitch – Considering Value

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I updated you about my autumn nuno landscape project about one month ago in this post. I had been discouraged with the project and it was languishing. So I asked for suggestions and I appreciate all the support. I decided to go ahead and keep working on it but only doing about 15-20 minutes a day. (Click on any of the photos to enlarge.)

Here’s what it looked like one month ago. I decided to start filling more of the middle ground with a combination of neutralized red and green seed stitching.

Here you can see how much seed stitching can be completed in short spurts. But I was still dissatisfied with the piece. Why was that? After working on it steadily, I took some time to look back at my reference photo and see what I had missed. Then I realized that I didn’t have enough dark values to show the shadowed areas in the landscape. Aha!

I started by adding a more neutralized green in the area between the aspen trees. I used a much thinner thread (1 strand floss) and smaller stitching. It darkened up the area a bit but that wasn’t enough.

So then I started adding a dark brown in the same area. Again, I used one strand of floss and smaller stitches. I am still essentially doing seed stitch but piling it on top of other seed stitches.

So here is how far I have gotten with my slow stitching. I am happy that I figured out what was bothering me about the piece. There are still lots of more shadows to add in to give the impression of lines of trees. I also think that I will add a more neutralized green over the distant pines in places. The more stitching I add, the more it seems to need. But at least I am moving forward.

Can you see the difference when you compare the piece side by side, before adding darker values and after? Do you think about value contrast when you’re working on a composition? Do you have any tricks for seeing value contrast better?

Sanctuary

Sanctuary

Comments 17 comments

I have been slowly stitching the tree in my landscape. I am couching down yarns that I have in my stash. These are definitely recycled since they are from old knitted items and the yarn has been pulled apart again. It already has some nice textures and kinks to it making it easier creating a “gnarly” tree trunk and branches.

Here it is when I showed it to you last.

And now, here is the tree filled in with more branches.

And here’s a closer view of some of the texture on the tree. I am thinking about adding just a few more branches. What do you think? More branches or not? I am calling this piece Sanctuary because it reminds me of the trees that the eagles sit on around my house. I see eagles all the time in these old gnarly trees with broken branches.

This is a perfect piece for the new landscape challenge that Lyn posted about a few days ago. But since I already started it before the challenge, I will probably do an entirely different piece for that. But since “scapes” are one of my favorite genres, I am sure I won’t have any problem coming up with a challenge piece. Have you started a piece for the challenge? We’d love for you to share it with us. Just come on over to the forum and show us your landscape.

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