Hi, Linda here and today I'm here to show you how I used one of Jane LaFazio's stencils, Eucalyptus Blooms from StencilGirl.Initially I was planning to create an art journal page using this stencil, but I'm working on a hand stitched silk piece right now, and while stitching one evening an idea came to me on how I could use this stencil to help me along with this piece.
I started by creating a background using a machine embellisher to adhere various bits of dupioni silk to a piece of felt. The rest of the work will all be hand embroidery, including couching of hand twisted silk strips as you can see.
When I work on a piece like this, I work very intuitively. I have somewhat of a 'vision' in my head, but I stitch and add elements as I go, based on what I see developing before me. The image above is a close up of the larger piece, which is about 18" x 22".
As it is developing, I became aware of the fact that I needed something in the middle third of the piece and I was thinking I wanted them to look somewhat like plants, in a very textural way. At the same time I was thinking about what I wanted to do for my journal page using Jane's stencil. That's when it hit me! The eucalyptus blooms would be a perfect starting point for what I was considering!
I mixed some acrylic paint with fabric medium (to ensure a better 'hand' for hand stitching) and then used a cosmetic sponge to apply the paint through the stencil.
I have intentionally used a fairly subtle paint colour so that it can inform my stitching, perhaps cast a faint shadow effect but for the most part disappear into the background when the stitching is complete.
I'm using a variety of greens, some variegated, to make the bullion stitches. I'm please with the texture and interest I'm achieving. I also decided to do some French knots, using a wonderfully textured shiny variegate rayon boucle. It's a little tricky to stitch with, but I love the results.
This piece will probably take me a few more weeks of hand stitching, so I went ahead and stitched one of the stencil inspired 'plants' just to show you what it will look like.
When this piece is finished, I'll be sure to post it, either over on my own blog, here, or both so you can see the overall effect of the stencil design and how it all stitched up.
Remember, whatever you're working on, keep your stencils in mind. They just might give you that perfect little boost in your artwork!
Thanks for visiting today!
