Adventures in a Foreign Country

Experiencing a foreign country can do wonders for an artist's perspective and creativity. Taking yourself out of your comfort zone and daily routine can open up all sorts of possibilities to let your imagination flow. Recently, I decided to visit my cousin who lives in southern Alberta, Canada. We haven't see each other in quite a while and, basically, we just needed some time to catch up and have fun. We are, also, involved with some mutual creative projects and there comes a point with that sort of thing when sharing files over the Internet isn't enough and we need to sit down together for a face to face collaboration. She is designing the Athena's Needle website and we are co-authoring a series of children's books. In short, we are doing what we've always done and cheering each other on with our creative endeavors.

But I have found another dimension to this trip that I didn't think about or expect. I live in the sub-tropical semi jungle of Central Florida where there is not real Fall or dramatic change of seasons. Where Winter is a time when it gets cool enough for the azaleas and camellias to bloom. Where humidity sits on your skin like a heavy velvet glove and it rains every afternoon at 3. Coming to the arid prairie of southern Alberta and the brilliant Fall colors has taken me out of the world I normally live in. Every kind of small thing in the environment is just basically different. The shapes of trees, the sound of the bird song, and the feel of the air. It is lovely and mild here in the Fall. The dry air changes the quality of the light and sharpens all sorts of minute details. The water in the roadside ditches sparkles more vividly and the blue of the sky is a gradient of different hues. Although the winds are gentle, you can feel the colder weather sitting just beyond the doorstep. All this difference has allowed me to step aside from my daily expectations and see things with new eyes. Ideas, projects, designs and colors are crowding my mind. I bought a new sketch book just to keep up with it all. Its so refreshing to get this kind of clarity just by stepping back from the too-well-known and embrace these new stimulations. I feel renewed and energized. And taking it all home is nothing I have to pack in my luggage or declare at the border. It is the treasures of travel and family and friendship that is beyond price. Now I will weave it all into new designs and have those as souvenirs of not just a place, but a journey of inspiration.

Planning

A discussion came up about how projects are planned.  I’ve always found it interesting how artist find their way from the initial moment of inspiration to the completed piece.  Each person develops their own process so I though I would share mine here.

As for design planning – When I get an idea for a design, I collect a whole series of images from books and from image files on the web. Once I find a picture or series of pictures that feel like I want things to look, I work up the design in PCStitch since I do a lot of cross stitch and petit point. I work with several images until I get the feel of what I want into the space I have set up and go from there setting up the colors and borders. But the colors on the computer screen are never quite the same as ones in real life under real light, so the next step is getting out my floss boxes and sitting by a sunny window to fiddle with the colors until they are all right with the piece and each other.

Its the nature of the project that determines what kind of fabric I use. If I am making pin cushions or smalls, I favor cotton floss on Aida cloth or hardanger fabric for its tight structure, washability and durability. I expect smalls to get a lot of use and wear and I want them washable after life in the work box. Linen, especially evenweave linen doesn’t have the firm feel I like and tends to get small pulls in the weave after a while. But if I am doing samplers, bell pulls or similar pieces that don’t get a lot of hand wear, linen is so lovely and agreeable and partners so well with silks. So its finding a balance with materials and purpose.

So I guess for me planning a project is a juggling and balancing act bringing images, fabrics and fibers into agreement with each other all before I sit down to stitch. But the true test of a design or project comes in the working. Sometimes no matter how careful you are with planning it doesn’t come out like you want it in the execution. The last stage of a project is not being afraid to take something out if it doesn’t work.

A Shine and a Sparkle

We have come up with Logo 2.0 today.  My cousin, Pam Steele, designer and creative genius behind Mystic Spyder Designs, has taken the logo and put a new shine on it.  Later this month I will be traveling to Canada to sit down one-on-one with her and get our new website planned and designed.  We have great ideas and I can’t wait to see how they will go from concept to reality.  And since the new set of embroidered smalls is just about ready to be unveiled, what better time to show it all off.

Deceptive Simplicity

Ages ago I found some patterns in an antique pattern book I thought might be interesting to try sometime.  They got filed into that vague “good for something eventually” category and saved on a page with other similar motifs.  The other day while looking for border ideas for a different project, I came across it.  With a few changes and minor edits, the simple motif became a running border; a few more edits gave it a corner.  And within just a short time I had a wide border and corner that easily became all kinds of articles large and small.  There is a certain joy to having something flowing and flexible that easily fits where you want it to.  There is no special honor about agonizing and fussing with a design until you get it right – simple can be wonderful.  And with simple came the thought of having a freebie when I mount my web site.  This, too, is not a bad idea.

Now for choosing the colors.  The leaves were no real problem, but when it came to the flowers… well…. I’ve mentioned before about all the glorious colors you can find in cotton floss.  And they come in shaded color groups that are just perfect for this sort of thing.  And therein lies the problem.  First it was going to be red because of the project I had originally wanted the border for.  You know, geraniums.  And then I found the blue – well, cornflowers.  But what about purple irises, and aren’t they more interesting with the the smaller flowers in one set of colors and the larger flowers in another?  But what about orange? Its Fall here and all the stores are filled with brilliant Fall colors like crsyanthemums.  And you can’t forget roses, can you?  So by this time I have five different color groups and when I found myself sorting out the bronzes and plums this morning I knew I had to call a halt to it.  There is no end to the beautiful colors – somewhere you just have to draw a line.  But even after that, what about mixing and matching the flowers.  Why stop with just one color of flowers on a thing when you can have two or three or all of them in a row?  *sigh*  I could see where this was about to go.  So I think I will package the set with a chart for color substitutions and a couple of paragraphs of ideas and suggestions for the individual to individualize it.

So far so good and perhaps I may or may not have created a monster – after all, if I make a substitution chart I only have to have one full chart of articles.  Okay – we’re ramping back down to simple again.  But there are blank spaces that the borders naturally make.  Is this a subtle invitation for me to get together a set of monograms for it?  After all I’ve been thinking of monograms – a small signature space – hm…  I think I see another simple monster looming on the horizon, but I think I’m make that for another day.