Sunday, April 1, 2012

I have been working on my postcards every evening.

For the Postmark'dArt trade for Van Gogh, I feel most intrigued by his style of paint stroke; impasto.
I wanted to interpret this with embroidery floss, 36 or 72 strands together to help create the feeling of impasto.
 It's really more of a study, since I haven't gotten down to one type yet.
He painted lots of fields, but the one above isn't mailable.
 I really wanted to do something with starry night, but it's not working for me.  Partially because there isn't enough shades/colors in embroidery floss, and partially because I only wanted to do a section but this just looks like a mastectomy.  When I was starting this one I had been looking at the piece at http://www.googleartproject.com/ and was amazed to see that he didn't paint the entire canvas, he left spots of the canvas unpainted when it contributed to the overall look.  At first I was trying to replicate that, but the more I futzed with it, the worse it looked.
 I also love Les Alyscamps.  The trees full of fall color appear to be on fire in his painting.  So I was inspired to do the one above.  But when I was done I did the one below.  Unfortunately all I see in the one below is a big blue tornado.  Or a river falling over a dam.  The blue takes over the yellow, believe it or not.  Plus I shouldn't have used the stitch going vertical.
I put stiffener on the backs of all of these, so they'd hold up in the mail.
I'll just keep working on them, but in the end I'll probably just make more of the yellow one, with one row of trees.  But can I ever just do the simple thing?  I wish!  There's lessons learned in each one.

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