A Little Bit Sketchy

I was recently inspired by 'Threadpainter' on Flickr.  Her name is Sharon Begg from Ontario I believe, and she has ink line drawings posted that are all full of cross hatches and dots.  It's gorgeous!  I typically bypass the sketchbook phase with my art, going strain from photo to stitching it out the colors.  When I saw these drawings on flickr though, I was wowed at what a great technique that could be for me to plan out the method I would use for handstitching.  So I pulled up a couple favorite photos of mine that have not yet been put to fibre, took up my pencil and paper, and sketched these out.  The first one is from yesterday's photos.

Not the best looking, but it gives me lots of ideas on how to fill in space with stitches.  VERY helpful.  Then I did this one...

That was from a very colorfully dramatic photo I took on Valley Road.  It looks and feels MUCH different in black and white.  I hadn't noticed the giant curved cross hatch of the huge cloud formation behind the perspective of the power lines.  It gives me ideas on future angles of interest I could use in my work.  I like the angle of the road there too, it mirrors the cloud.  At the time of the photo, I only noticed the color.  It was sun down.  The lines & shapes were not the forefront of my excitement when I took this shot.  In fact, the lines themselves are quite dramatic, aren't they!?

And then I did up the Tipi and rosehips photo.  I love this composition very much.

LOOK how different it is when sketched!  Again, in the photo, I loved the red berries on the white snow, and the light tipi against the blue sky.  But once I sketched it out, I saw new things...

I LOVE that sky so much!  It has such an awesome SWOOSH to it.  Isn't that cool?  I hadn't noticed the sky before, only the drama of the snow... which has no emphasis at all in the sketch.  I guess I"ll be paying a little more attention to line for a while here.  Lots to learn!