Wilderness Piece(s) Update

Well, one thing has led to another.  The little lizard just couldn't settle in the original wilderness piece, so I thought at first he might work on the black satin one, but then realized he needed his own habitat.

So I found some beautiful evenweave linen in my bits of fabric place, stretched it on stretcher bars, the stitching kind, very easy to put the thumbtacks in, not like artist stretcher bars.  And painted it with silk paints, then salted the result.  

This is the back of the painting, but the front of the artwork, channeling Helen Frankenthaler here..this is 8 x 8 inches.

He seems more at home here.  But this is only the start. Next I will be drawing threads out to make grasses, and doing possibly needleweaving and various other fancy steps, to create a more 3D environment for him.  He will work in and out of the grasses. This piece will be backed with dyed silk, I think, to complete the illusion.  And I can't wait to get cutting and drawing..

I thought of all this when I read Mary Corbet's blogpost today with great links, one of which took me to Susan Elliott's blog which had info about a wonderful needlewoman, Catherine Jordan,  and the idea of painting and drawing threads I saw there was so compelling I dashed right up to the studio and got to work on it.  This new wilderness piece owes a lot to all those women, thank you all, and I'll take off on my own path with it!  why are you not surprised to hear that.

While I was up there in the studio, after you climb two flights may as well make it worth your climb, I stretched the black satin piece with the copper monotype on it, as a companion piece to the crocheted wilderness.  This stretches to 12 x 12 inches finished size.

The luna moth will be very happy on this one.  Haven't yet decided on the orientation of this one, but I'll see how Luna likes it.

And I fixed the blue butterfly on the crochet piece, and I think the dragonfly will go into residence there too.  I need a ground based third critter, though.  Again, this is the same size as the night version, 12 x 12 inches.

Of course now I have to make more critters since I now have three, count them, wilderness pieces to populate..this is what happens when you drop your guard. 

Speaking of which, while I was busy on all this, there were movements in the rl animal kingdom, in the shape of a local very well cared for cat, not a stray, trying once again to move in. He shows up every couple of weeks insisting he ought to live here. 

 Here he's on the fence having seen Marigold hissing and puffing up while Duncan snoozed on, above it all.  So their drama was keeping them busy, too.