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Grove of Trees – Part Three

Grove of Trees – Part Three

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Slow progress is happening on my new nuno felt landscape. Again, it’s the find the difference in the photos challenge 😉

I had laid out the background trees at the end of my last post. Now I have stitched them down. I haven’t stitched the more foreground trees down yet because I need to work on the forest floor section at the front.

I wanted to play with some shapes of fallen trees on the forest floor. I had some cheesecloth scraps that worked with the colors so far. I added some shadows on the larger fallen tree.

Here I have added more shadows to the fallen tree. I am using another edge of nylon scarf in a dark red violet and a few scraps of blue violet silk organza.

Then I needed to figure out what to do with the rest of the foreground. Here I have added one layer of orange nylon scarf over the top of the fallen logs. Hmmm…

I changed from one big piece of orange nylon scarf and had multiple strips across with fringed edges. I realize you can’t see it very well in the photo. I put the fallen logs on top this time. Hmmm… still needs something. Aha! My usual suspect, it needs value changes.

Here I have added some darker red violet pieces of scarf amongst the orange. I think you will be able to see the changes more easily in the next photo.

Here it is with more of the darker red violet interspersed among the orange. That gives more contrast, so looking better.

I added the fallen logs back into the foreground and another tree. I am planning on adding more trees but now I need to get some of this stuff sewn down. I hope you aren’t getting tired of this project, still a ways to go yet.

Nuno felted landscape background with fabrics added for background horizon and tree shapes.
Grove of Trees – Part Two

Grove of Trees – Part Two

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I’m working on my grove of trees nuno landscape slowly. I think that some of you may think that this is a “find the difference” in the photos as they look pretty similar. But this is how I work, I add something, take a photo, look at the photo to see if it works, then add something else etc. That means there may be only one small difference from photo to photo, maybe I took something off, maybe I added something.

Nuno felted landscape background with fabrics added for background horizon and tree shapes.

I had the background “horizon” and the large dark tree on the left when I left off. Now to add more trees. There are three little lines added on. These are the folded edges/hems of the nylon scarves I use to add layers of color. I usually just cut them off and don’t use them but I thought they might work for background trees. I tried maroon, yellow and orange. Not exactly what I wanted.

Nuno felted landscape background with fabrics added for background horizon and tree shapes.

Then I added a mid tone grey one. I liked that better as it pushed the line further into the distance.

Nuno felted landscape background with fabrics added for background horizon and tree shapes.

I added more mid tone grey trunks and moved the orange one closer to the “sun”. That looked better.

Nuno felted landscape background with fabrics added for background horizon and tree shapes.

The I added a few more orange ones keeping them on the right hand side where the light is coming in.

Nuno felted landscape background with fabrics added for background horizon and tree shapes.

I wanted to use more of the silk organza for a few more bigger trunks in the mid ground to foreground.

Nuno felted landscape background with fabrics added for background horizon and tree shapes.

And a couple more smaller ones in the same deep red color. I was happy with how it was coming along.

Nuno felted landscape background with fabrics added for background horizon and tree shapes.

Here I have added a few white “branches” to see what that would look like. I am inspired by Wolf Kahn’s tree paintings and was looking at several that showed white marks to denote branches like in this painting. I would need a lot more of the white lines to give the same effect. I will be pondering on that idea a while yet.

Nuno felted landscape background with fabrics added for background horizon and tree shapes.

I decided I didn’t want to add too many layers without starting to stitch down the under layers. So I stitched the darker “horizon” background down to the nuno felt. Now I need to stitch the skinny trees down. I still need to figure out the foreground and there will be more layers of fabric on the larger trees. Still a long way to go. But I’m happy with my progress.

Nuno Felt Background with appliqued felt rocks and sheer fabric cast shadows stitched in place.
Forest Floor Update

Forest Floor Update

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I have continued to make slow progress on my forest floor piece. Since I showed you last, I have stitched down the rocks and added some shadows.

Nuno Felt Background with appliqued felt rocks stitched in place.

I decided on the final rock placement and then stitched them in place. I moved the rock that is now on the top right over from the left since it was much lighter. This reinforces the feeling of the light shining from behind the trees. Once the rocks were stitched in place, I decided they needed a bit more definition as they kind of looked like potatoes to me.

I remembered a book about nature journaling that I had checked out from the library by John Muir Laws. I decided to look him up online to see if he had some information about drawing rocks. I found a wealth of information on his site about drawing in nature. If you would like to improve your drawing skills, this is an excellent resource.

Photo of forest floor piece with tracing paper and rock shadows sketched in with pencil.

I took the photo from above and printed it out. Then I used a piece of tracing paper to sketch the rock placement. Then I used hatching techniques to give some shape to the rocks. These aren’t specific rocks. I find it much easier to draw/sketch when I have a photo of what I am trying to draw or I can look at a specific rock or landscape. But they look more like rocks than potatoes now.

I decided to use the same blue that is already in the nuno background for the shadows. That would tie all the blue bits in as shadows and move the blue over on to the right side of the composition too. I used a straight stitch to do the “hatching” on the rocks using #12 Sulky cotton thread. Once those shadows were in, I knew I needed to add cast shadows from the rock on to the ground. So I brought out my navy blue sheer fabric to create some cast shadows.

Nuno Felt Background with appliqued felt rocks and sheer fabric cast shadows stitched in place.

Here’s the piece after adding the sheer fabric around the rocks. I stitched the sheer fabric down with #40 machine thread with tiny stitches. Now guess what? I need more shadows in front of the trees. It’s always funny to me that I am working along and when some shadows are added, I can immediately see that I need more. So the next step is more sheer blue fabric to add the cast shadows from the trees. Then I will begin adding more leaves and the white flowers so that it will resemble my original collage below.

Paper collage of landscape of forest floor, white flowers and tree trunks in the distance.

 

Nuno felted background with stitched felt stumps, felt rocks and cheesecloth moss.
Slow Progress on Forest Floor

Slow Progress on Forest Floor

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I have made a bit of slow progress on my forest floor piece. If you missed my first post, you can see the beginnings here.

Nuno felt background with small stitch samples of running stitch and wrapped cords.

The next step was to do a bit of stitch sampling on the tree trunks. I had been making some wrapped cords that I thought might look nice stitched down to give tree trunk texture but they were too large a scale for the size of the trunks as you can see on the left side. Then I started searching for a stitch that I thought would look nice as texture on the bark. After looking at some complex stitches, I suddenly remembered the KISS principle (keep it simple …). So I decided to try running stitch. It is a much better scale and simple to stitch, the winner!

So I stitched on both trunks. The left photo was taking a look at how they were going to be on the background. I decided they still needed more stitching and added a bit more running stitch. I used a lightweight wool thread as I didn’t want to have a contrast from the wool trunk to a shinier thread such as cotton or silk.

Nuno felted background with stitched felt stumps, felt rocks and cheesecloth moss.

Now on to adding more of the foreground elements. Keeping in mind that I want to highlight the streak of “sunshine” from back left to right foreground, I placed three pieces of felt cut into perhaps rock shapes as well as adding some “moss” with cheesecloth. This is how far I have gotten. I think the rocks need some stitching to add a bit more shadow/darker values. That’s the next thing to sample.

 

Nuno Felted background with handstitched silk paper applique birch trees on the left over tulle pine trees. Two red twig dogwood bushes handstitched on front right foreground.
Winter Birch Update

Winter Birch Update

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I have been working on my winter birch landscape. Here are the posts for part 1 and part 2 if you missed them.

I finished appliqueing the birch trunks and adding the machine stitched branches. I’m happy with the trees, now on to foreground snow.

Most of the comments on my last post thought it would be a good idea to add some snow in the foreground. I found a piece of white prefelt which I tore apart and auditioned in the left photo. The middle photo is with wool locks and the right photo is with wool slubs and nepps. I’m not happy with any of them. The one I like the best is on the left but I don’t have a good way to adhere the wool. I could needle felt it in but I really don’t like to needle felt into the silk of the nuno felt. I am thinking the foreground snow is not happening.

Small red twig dogwood bush handstitched on nuno felt for a sample. Sampling different weights and colors of thread for the branches of the bush.

Another suggestion was to add red twig dogwood bushes. That seemed like a good idea to add in a contrasting color. I made a sample here on another piece of the nuno felt background. I used wool thread in dark orange, red and darker red. I first tried two threads, mixing the colors. The branches felt too fat. So I switched to one thread and decided to use the red and dark red threads. I hand stitched the bush using stem stitch.

Next came stitching it on the piece. I do like the addition of the red. Now I am letting it rest for a bit to decide if I want to add the red in one other area of the landscape. I think it might look more balanced if I had a few bushes further in the background. What do you think?

 

Nuno Felted background with four handstitched silk paper applique birch trees on the left over tulle pine trees. Auditions of foreground birch trees overlapping other trees in the distance.
Winter Birch Continued

Winter Birch Continued

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Blue and white nuno felted background with tulle pine tree shapes on the left and birch trees cut from silk paper on the right.

Here’s where I was with Winter Birch the last time I wrote about the project. I was trying to decide how to represent the pine trees in the distance. This is black tulle burned with a heat tool to represent the trees.

Tulle pine trees created by burning with a heat tool in greens and navy blue.

I made more tulle trees in the same manner with dark green and navy blue tulle. In theory, it seemed like a good idea to overlay these over the black tulle trees. But then when I did that, the trees were just a mish mash and you couldn’t really see them. So I decided to just use the black ones.


Nuno Felted background with silk paper applique birch trees over tulle pine trees. Audition of how pine trees will look in the distance.

Here are the black trees with the birch in place before I stitched them down.

Nuno Felted background with tulle pine trees hand stitched in place with feather stitch. Close up.

I hand stitched them down with a dark variegated thread and used feather stitch. It added a little bit of green but nothing you could see from a distance.

Nuno Felted background with handstitched silk paper applique birch tree over tulle pine trees.

Then I moved on to the birch trees on the left that are in the background. I hand appliqued the silk paper birch trunk in place and then free motion machine stitched the branches. I want the branches to overlap and not appear all on one “level” so that is why I am stitching each trunk and branches separately.

Here is the progression of the stitching on the background birch trees. This always takes longer than I think it should. But I did like alternating between hand and machine stitching.

Nuno Felted background with four handstitched silk paper applique birch trees on the left over tulle pine trees. Auditions of foreground birch trees overlapping other trees in the distance.

Here I am auditioning the foreground trees over what I have stitched so far. I think I will probably stitch down the background birches on the right side first but I do like to see how the overlapping trees affects the piece. I am also trying to decide if I should attempt adding more snow to the picture. What do you think?

The First Leaf – Nuno Felt Landscape

The First Leaf – Nuno Felt Landscape

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Before I get started on my new nuno felted landscape, I wanted to share the changes that I made to First Light, which I posted about several weeks ago.

This is what it looked like on the last post. I had a comment from Ann B. that it lacked shadows. I had hemmed and hawed about adding shadows. I had convinced myself that the marks on the background could serve as shadows as it was a bit abstract. But the more I thought about it, the more I agreed with Ann that it was lacking something. So I decided I would audition shadows with sheer fabric. And once I saw it, I knew the shadows were necessary. How could I call it First Light if I ignored the shadows?

And here it is after adding shadows. What do you think? Better or worse? I would suggest that you don’t rush whether a piece is finished or not. It was a bit of a challenge stitching the shadows down after the piece was already laced to backing board 😉

Now on to this piece. It definitely had beautiful autumn colors, so I decided I would add some silver birch trees with their fall leaf color. You will notice that I turned this around so the darker area was closer to the top of the piece.

I cut out some tree trunks from silk paper that I had made a while ago in preparation for trees. I hand stitched these in place.

Then I added some branches so the leaves would have somewhere to live.

Next up, I needed some background foliage. I didn’t want it to be too dominant but just needed some texture. I decided to use nylon organza and then burn it back with a wood burning tool to give it a leafy feel. Then I stitched it in place. You can click on the photo to enlarge it so you can see the details better.

Next up was to cut out a bunch of leaf shapes in two colors of silk organza. I hand stitched these in place but the leaves were still too transparent and weren’t giving the effect I wanted to achieve.

I looked through my stash and had this bright yellow in silk habotai. That would perfect from a more opaque leaf. Once cut out, these leaves were stitched down. The photos above show the progression from left to right. Then, I put the piece up on the wall and studied it. That leaning tree trunk on the far left was bugging me. I didn’t like that it took your eye off the edge and it matched the same lean as the tree towards the middle. So I did a bit of unstitching and removed it.

So here is The First Leaf. I haven’t found the correct background fabric for it yet so I will have to go shopping for that. But that gives me a bit more time for it to hang in the studio and make sure that it is really finished!

 

First Light – Nuno Landscape

First Light – Nuno Landscape

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This is the nuno background I showed a while back. Surprise, surprise, I created another landscape!

I started by adding some yellow orange sheer fabric to indicate the sky and then started auditioning trees cut from dyed silk organza. The trees went through many forms as I went along auditioning colors, sizes and placement.

I began making the foreground trees darker and the background trees lighter. It felt like the sun was coming from behind the hill. So I continued to emphasize that light perspective as I went along.

I was getting closer, adding more shadows and light.

Then I decided that the ground felt too light in the foreground. So I auditioned some sheer scarves in this area. These are light nylon scarves, you can see the edge hasn’t been removed here. Once the edge is cut off, the scarf can be easily frayed to blend into the background. Then on to stitching everything down.

Here’s the piece after I finished hand stitching the applique pieces in place for the trees. I also use a very small seed stitch to stitch down the sheer scarf pieces.

I decided I need something more in the foreground. The darker marks in the middle foreground reminded me of these plants. I think these are a type of wild orchid. This is a photo I took on one of my morning walks in the woods.

Here are the foreground plants. They are a combination of torn black tulle, couched yarns and pistol stitch in perle cottons.

I felt that the bottom of the orchids was a missing something so I added in some grasses which were couched down.

Here is the final piece on it’s fabric background. I have decided to call it First Light. The coloring in this last photo is the closest to the original. Now all it needs is framing.

 

 

Two Nuno Backgrounds

Two Nuno Backgrounds

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After putting my work in two different galleries, I felt a moment of panic because I have no more artwork that would be ready to go if anything sold. Better get to work!

I still had more of this dyed silk that I used for the Weeping Birch piece.

This is the fabric after I nuno felted it to black pre felt for the weeping birch piece. I had some red prefelt of the correct size so I decided to see what the fabric would look like with a red wool base.

Here is the piece after felting. It definitely has a different feel than with the black wool. Now to decide how I should move forward with this piece. What do you see? It’s always so interesting to hear what different people see in the same background.

 

This is the nuno background that I used for Summer Fireworks. It was felted on to white pre felt. Since I was already using the red prefelt, I decided to back the dyed silk from the same piece of fabric with red pre felt. How different would it look?

Here is the silk fabric nuno felted on to red wool.  I see trees and bushes at the top of this with perhaps grasses or flowers at the bottom? Or maybe roots and the underground at the bottom? I will show you my progress as I get further along in the process.

I definitely enjoyed seeing the difference that the pre felt wool color makes in the end nuno felted result. I will have to try out more colors when I get the chance.

Completing Montana Sunrise

Completing Montana Sunrise

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Here is where I was when I left off in my last post about my latest nuno felted landscape. I decided the next step was to create more evergreen trees to add to the left hillside.

I used some green wool sandwiched between two pieces of water soluble fabric and free motion stitched some trunks/branches. These were then soaked in hot water and gently felted. I started adding them into the foreground. I decided I didn’t have enough so I went back and stitched more several times until I was satisfied with the volume. I also added in a few areas of lighter trees to give a bit of contrast. Once I had those arranged and pinned down, I started looking at the yellow brown area in the middle of the picture, part of the closest mountain. It seemed to have too much contrast and due to being the same color as the foreground, it “moved” that mountain too far forward.

So I added a couple of pieces of sheer nylon scarves, one deep red and one purple over the area. That’s better! I try a lot of different things as I’m working and take quick photos on my phone. I’m not showing all the photos as it is hard to tell the differences in some of them. But I use the photos to see how the piece looks from a distance and find any glaring problems. At some point in here, I added some sheer black fabric behind the foreground mountain as there were bits of black wool that were drawing my attention too much.

After I stitched down the trees with a variety of blue green threads and a bit of feather stitch, I started working on the foreground. If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you can see the details a bit better. The grass is a combination of raffia, burlap and cheesecloth. I also was bothered by the “driveway” of green on the middle right. At some point, I tore some of the wool from the surface so that it wasn’t such a line.

I arranged the grass bits numerous times and then started stitching them down. The photo on the left has the “clumps” stitched but I was trying various pieces of raffia on the very bottom and had them pinned in place. I also decided the raffia was a bit too light so I colored it with a felt tip marker in light browns, greens and dark brown edges. The photo on the right shows the piece after completing the foreground. Next up was the sky.

I wanted to “move” the colors in the sky around a bit with some stitching. But how to do that? I first thought about couching threads to the surface. The photo on the left shows that idea being tested. I wasn’t happy with that but couldn’t decide what to do. So I reached out to Antje (who has authored posts here in the past), and she made several good suggestions. I decided to use running stitch. I used variegated colors and mixed several strands together to not have such a solid color effect. Click on the photo on the right to see the starting of the running stitch. The point of adding the stitching was to soften some of the harder transitions in the sky. Thanks Antje for your help!

Here is the finished Montana Sunrise (16″ x 30″). It definitely has a bit different feel using a mosaic type of nuno felt instead of one piece of dyed silk. I think it is much less abstract than some of my other recent pieces. Now I have to find the right fabric for it’s matting. What color would you use as the matte?