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Janine Heschl’s top tips for realism in thread

Janine Heschl’s 3 tips for creating realism with thread

 

Janine Heschl a.k.a Textile Wildlife Art’s portraits of endangered animals are so realistic it’s easy to mistake them for photographs. She kindly shared three tips for improving the realism in your own work. You can read Janine’s full interview here and also do check out her website to see more of her work https://www.textilewildlifeart.com

 

1)Trust your eyes

When zooming into a nose of a tiger, you expect to discover several shades of pinks and rose tones, but you may also find dark lilac or hues of blue or a hint or light green in a reflection. Don’t go by what your brain tells you about tiger noses, but what your eyes pick up and be courageous enough to trust that! Adding that light green thread may be that exact detail it needed to create depth. Which leads me to the next tip:

2) Zoom in

Working from a reference photo will allow you, depending on the resolution, to really zoom into your subject. Take the time to familiarise yourself with the patterns, structures, fur growth directions, colours blending into each other… study your subject in the tiniest detail and then translate it into thread. Add that extra layer of highlights, even if it is just 3 single stitches. Add that turquoise dot in the reflection of the eye. 

It takes practice to pick up the smallest features and characteristics, but it will make all the difference in the end. Which again leads me to the next tip

3) Bring patience and passion to the party

Working on realism is time consuming and sometimes tedious. You can get trapped in details and forget to pay attention to the bigger picture, which eventually will become your masterpiece. So it is important in the beginning to be patient with yourself, to pace yourself and to pick a subject that you are passionate about, to make the joy last for the entire process. Pick an animal you are passionate about, then pick your favorite feature of it – an eye, the nose, fur pattern or feathers, and then focus on that selection. Don’t start a full lion embroidery, but scale down and start teaching your eyes to pick colours from the reference and find that colour in your thread collection. This also makes a fantastic excuse for buying more thread, if you were looking for one. 

By working on something you feel you have a connection with, you will be able to keep yourself motivated and interested, being able to push through more difficult areas and learning as much as possible. It won’t leave you overwhelmed but empowered in the end.

Covid Nomad by Keren Lowell

 

Textile artist Keren Lowell moved from Alaska to Colorado at the beginning of the pandemic. Before she moved she shed most of her personal possessions. Like most of us she had time to reflect, and she listed all of the places she had lived through her life which reached over forty. She then revisited her memories going through letters, maps of her travels,photographs and asking her parents about stories from her childhood and put these into her project.

 

“I can’t travel and move around physically during this time of relative isolation and social distancing, but I have been nomadically traveling through these memories, journals, photographs, maps and stories from my parents and siblings.”

 

Sewn from remnants from a number of sources including her sister’s wedding dress, she also included a large abstract  map of everywhere she had travelled and lived.

 

Covid Nomad was exhibited as part of ‘Fragile Domestic,’ at the Bunnell Street Art Center

and you can find out more about Keren in the interview I did with her a few years ago here

Calling all Tapestry Weavers

Heallreaf Post competitions    

Tapestries Year One and Urban Scenes – High Rise by Matty Smith 

 

“Putting tapestry on the walls of ordinary homes, not just stately homes.”

 

Heallreaf Post is a lovely exhibition held in Chichester, UK that exhibits postcard sized tapestries for sale. It is open to all tapestry artists and is free to enter but all pieces must be available to purchase. The criteria is as follows:

Art work must be weft faced or predominantly weft faced,

Landcape orientation

12.7 x 17.8 cms

The deadline for submissions is June 1st 2021. For more details and information on how to submit your work visit http://www.heallreaf.com/post

 

 

Matthew Larson’s exhibition

   

 

Textile Art comes in many different forms and American artist Matthew Larson uses a technique we haven’t seen before on Textile Curator.

Although his beautifully details pieces look woven they are in fact created by aligning strands of yarn onto velcro. This painstaking process results in an optical illusion effect as the fibres of the acrylic yarns reflect the light differently making some of the colours visually recede or protrude. You can see more of Matt’s work at the Rule Gallery in Denver until November 7th.

 

https://rulegallery.com

https://www.matthew-larson.com

Brita Been’s latest exhibition

 

       

 

Norwegian tapestry artist Brita Been is one of the most popular artist’s I’ve featured on the website so I thought you’d like to have a look at her new exhibition at the Risør Kunstpark gallery. Click on each image to see a larger version. If you are unfamiliar with Brita’s work check out her profile here https://www.textilecurator.com/home-default/home-2-2/britabeen/  or visit http://www.britabeen.no

 

Woven Stories

The collection of fabrics so far for Woven Stories.

 

Australian textile artist Angela McIntosh is now based in Canada, and like many artists she wasn’t able to access her studio during the lock down. Wanting to do something positive during the pandemic she developed a collective project called Woven Stories. “In essence I am asking people to reconnect with memories that are held within the comfort of cloth and then I am bringing together and celebrating these memories and connections with other contributors,” she explains. 

To take part you need to submit a photo and short narrative of why the fabric is important to you. To date the project comprises of a wide range of fabrics from all over the world including a wedding dress, an Afghan thrown and a vintage quilt. Once the digital project has closed, Angela will transform the images into a physical artwork, with the aim of exhibiting the digital contributions in tandem with the physical translation. The website will remain as a record and repository for people to visit. To find out more, or to read the fascinating memories behind the fabrics that are already included visit https://angela-mcintosh.ca/works/woven-stories