Stitching to transparency

The most recent stitching adventure at the embroiderers' guild was an introduction to shashiko, the Japanese art form, a running stitch which can be elaborated to the extent of the stitcher's expertise and design ability.

What I wanted to do, was a bit different, why are you not so surprised to hear this...and I did a white on indigo stitching, a kind of wave formation, pre-stamped on the fabric I was given. I left parts of it unstitched.  And Ginny, the member-instructor,  gave us brocade already folded into the form of a frame for the stitching.

You'll notice these are different ways up, part of the deciding process. Then I photographed it on silk as one layer of a new transparency artwork.

Meanwhile, I had noticed when I parked at the library, a very interesting tree with variegated and peeling bark, right in front of my car.  So I jumped out, took a couple of close ups, with the idea of seeing how they worked with the stitching idea.

And after a lot of fun, printing out the images onto silk chiffon, and layering them in different ways, I came out with a couple of artworks I'm okay with.  

They are now matted, and presented portfolio style, that's with a mat and a backing, protected by a transparent envelope, and will go with me to the stitch in this evening to show the people. I am hoping Ginny will be there, since she will be interested to see what I ended up doing. 

If you're interested in this process, and several people who've been to the house and taken a look, and played with the layers, have got really interested, you can get the silk from Dharma Trading. It' s paper with the silk sort of bonded onto it.  You put it through an inkjet printer (not a laser, that would probably melt the silk terminally inside your printer), and then peel off the silk layer.  The image also goes through to the backing paper, which you can use in another transparency setup, anyway, I do.

One of the great things about this is that you keep the images, and can reuse on other pieces of silk, with new and different layers. And your original art is unchanged, if you photograph your own work, so that is still available to you.