Floral Textured Canvas

For this piece I was inspired by flowers and nature. I was struck by the textures of the surface of the flowers. I decided to create a textured canvas using embroidery. Before I went to sew into my canvas I made a series of designs, i chose the design I did because i felt the composition and framing of the flowers complimented each other well. I also prepared my canvas by painting a wash of ink over using the colour palate of pinks, pale blue, pale yellow and light green’s. I painted a thick layer of white emulsion over the ink after it had dried, this was so it would chip away as sewing into it and create more tone and depth. 

This piece was inspired by the artists Anna Zemankova and Cal Lane. Anna Zemankova was known for her sewing and pastel artwork. Zemankova’s work inspired me to create a tonal embroidered piece. 

Cal Lane inspired me to cut into the canvas as Lane is well known for carving patterns into huge metal objects such as petrol tanks. I decided to go for a delicate approach by cutting out a flower and some leaf shapes inspired by Anna Zemankova’s leaf shaped designs. 

I chose to machine embroidery an orchid as I wanted to create a delicate side to the rough texture. on the leaves of the orchid i added some tissue paper, this was to add more tone to the flower which gave it more form and added to the texture from the ripped edges. In contrast to the flower I decided to sew a dark green leaf as this would give a good balance to the top heavy canvas, I emphasized the veins in the leaf by directing the lines in an over lapping diagonal way in all directions, this created an interesting line effect inside the leaf shape. The strong line effect balanced out the canvas. 

At the back of the canvas i wanted to create a slightly less obvious over powering texture, i went with a cross stitch. This chipped away the paint more and created a good tonal value in the background. I think this made the colours of the flower and leaf stand out more. I left a thick white boarder as I felt it complimented my composition more.