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Tuesday 6 September 2016

Keeping Promises

A long, LONG time ago (years, in fact) my friend Nicki Ault and I agreed to go photo hunting together and then create art from the same image.  She paints.  I stitch.  Once it's done, we'd swap. Well, finally we ended up together just outside of Pike Lake.  In fact, that was one year ago.  On Friday we finally did the swap.  Nothing like keeping promises!

The day we snapped photos, it was dark and rainy and there had been a hard frost the night before. The 360 degree view was amazing. We agreed we would both create a square piece of art inspired by this scene.  I made a version for her...


I called it 'September Three Sixty'.  It's 5" x 5" matted, framed, and under glass.  It's a poor photo - I had a computer crash and so this is one I took through the glass and tried to edit.  How entirely frustrating.  ***There is a much better photo of my piece on Nicki's BLOG***  While I worked on this one though, I made a larger version at the same time.  It's available at the Saskatchewan Craft Council Boutique.  Of course, it's not the same since I work on a blank piece of dyed cloth.  Each threadpainting works out differently.

Here is the image we chose to work from.


We took a lot of photos that day!!  It was hard to chose one.
And... tada!  She made this version for me...

'Brigit's View' 12x12 acrylic painting

I love it!  It really glows.  It looks good on my cream/pale yellow walls.  Oh, and my pumpkin spice living room walls too!  Yummy.  I put it on my pastel purple studio walls and it actually made me laugh.  Not great.  lol  Nicki's livingroom was a pale sage green / grey, a colour you can see in the painting itself.  (Again, you can see her wall colour on her blog).  It looked amazing on that wall too.  It's fun to see how things look on different backdrops.

What else can I say...  I'm starting to find that I'm disliking the 'tiny' and the 'tightness' of threadwork.  Oops!  Did I say that?  I don't know what it is... but I just want to get into bigger shapes and looser styles.  In fact, I recall the first time I saw threadwork.  I think my immediate reaction was just that - tight and bunchy. At the same time, I'm thoroughly enjoying the architecture I've been working on with my sewing machine.  Who knows where I'll go from here?

You can see more of Nicki's work at her blog HERE.  Please enjoy

THANK YOU NICKI!




6 comments:

Carli The Quilter said...

Hi Monika!

Lovely September 360!

Seams French said...

I love the two perspectives. Great idea.

Judy Cooper Textile Artist said...

Both pieces of art are beautiful! Thanks for sharing.

Lin said...

Great swap Monika - I love seeing two different perspectives on the same view. Looking forward to seeing where you go from here. xx

mimu said...

so much to learn...I am a great believer in it doesn't have to be either/or- You can combine painting with stitching and embroidery in big collages.
Your work is beautiful...if you leave the structure for now, you will probably still return to the stitching somehow, even integrating it in other work perhaps. Go for it!


Bernie said...

I tried to leave this comment on Niki's site but it wanted a google account and I don't have one.
What a cool project -- one photo and two different approaches. So neat to see the finished work.
Truly friendship pieces.
Bernie

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