wordless wednesday

underneath

slow

Now that I have reached the hand-stitching stage of the home portrait I have slowed down quite a bit. This the meditative, contemplative stage of the design.

choosing

After trimming away the excess tulle and dryer sheets, I pulled out my hand-stitching thread options and auditioned them. This is just the beginning of the thread choice process, I frequently change my mind as I get going and the artwork demands something different.

roof line

window

bushes

 By the end of the week this piece should look quite different!

designing...

Things are moving swiftly on my commission challenge. When I fully wrap my head around an idea, I tend to make decisions quickly and move along to the doing part. Here is a pictorial presentation of what's been happening:

planning

First I printed out an actual size photo, no fancy ink or paper, just an image to guide me. I made a tracing of it to lay over my work when I need to check alignment of parts. Underneath is a piece of heavy Pellon interfacing that will be my base.

auditioning

I auditioned my ephemera with the wool mittens that were already felted into submission as I knew that I wanted them to be the lawn.

refining

I decided to cut up the cream and sage tissue paper and rearrange it. Dryer sheets will make a good texture for the stucco, and cotton ribbon makes the steps.

adding shadows

As I was covering the tissue paper with tulle to give it better stability, I decided that the roof line needed shadows. Black tulle does the trick. The shiny plastic bags make good window reflections.

checking alignment

My tracing paper guide has come in handy several times to check that all the components are properly aligned.

auditioning thread

Then it was time to audition thread for the machine sketching. I like using variegated thread and this time I wanted light for the top part and dark for the bottom.

paper guide

My paper guide gets thoroughly used, now it will guide my machine sketching lines. I don't follow it slavishly, it's just there to make sure that proportions are correct and I don't forget all the details that I want to use.

almost ready for hand stitching

Now the tedious job of removing the paper guide is almost done. I will refine and maybe remove some material now and decide on the hand stitching details. 

wordless wednesday

flag central

a challenge

I have decided to challenge myself in a new way. 

First the back story: in my previous lives as a fashion designer and then a costume designer and an assistant costume designer, I usually worked on bringing someone else's vision to life, be it a customer, a director or a costume designer. If it was a character in film, I tried to get into that characters head to figure out how they would dress, of course taking notes from the director and the actor into consideration. When I started creating my own artwork, I focused on what I wanted to say, on my emotion and vision. The thought of doing a commission and bringing someone else's vision to how my art should look was scary. 

There are a lot of artists out there who do commission work. They thrive on this work and it does not impede their own vision. So perhaps the reason I am thinking about dipping my toe into commission work is because I now feel secure enough in my own art.

I thought of what I think is a good way of giving this a try. I have some friends with wonderful homes and they have agreed to let me attempt to make a portrait of their homes. Of course I needed to add a twist - the portrait will utilize ephemera from my friends homes, bits and pieces of things destined for the trash or the recycle bin.

So here's my first challenge.

wool mittens past their prime, tissue papers, ribbon, dryer sheets, clear plastic bag and twigs

picture of the home

Now I must figure out how to translate all this into a portrait of home. The final artwork will be 12"x12" and will involve lots of collage, machine stitching and hand stitching. That much I know.

mittens deconstructed

 I decided to start by deconstructing the mittens... I think I will felt them and see where that takes me... Stay tuned!

finally finished!

I have been working on this piece for quite a while, it might have been last spring when I started it. Once the machine stitching part of the process was done, and the laborious hand stitching began, the artwork became a "take along project" that got brought to waiting rooms through out the school year. When I finished a few deadline driven things at the end of last week, I finally brought this piece to completion too and I now I am delighted to share it!

This work fits into my St. Pete Cathedrals series which explores the beautiful church architecture of St. Petersburg, Russia. I photographed this church through the windows of an apartment building at the back and while it was under restoration, thus the covered dome behind the one I feature. I liked the juxtaposition of the gray covered dome with the ornate stone dome quite a bit. Actually this cathedral is still under restoration, perhaps I will revisit it in my studio once the restoration is complete.

under restoration

waiting

Dormition Cathedral, Natalya Aikens©2013

The materials in this piece include scraps of silk and cotton, lots of thread bits, painted dryer sheets and tulle. It measures 12" x 12" and is mounted on stretched canvas with a painted edge.
I have another from the same series awaiting hand stitching... maybe it'll be done by next spring.....

wordless wednesday

sanitized

wordless wednesday

blown

wordless wednesday

AC>DC?

happy earth day!

In celebration of Earth Day today, I thought I'd post a new little piece I just completed yesterday. Appropriately for Earth Day I took the health of our planet into consideration and did a bit of recycling. This piece is constructed from recycled grocery store and newspaper plastic bags with machine stitching in rayon thread and hand stitching in silk thread.

Escape 6"x6"   Natalya Aikens©2013

Escape detail

Here are some interesting sights that talk about recycling and health of our planet:
some interesting numbers
some scary numbers
plastic facts
how to recycle plastic bags

How do you recycle in your home?