Sr 2, Blog entry 3:
Having as studio has allowed me to lead my own projects during the summer break, without fear of interruption. I made the decision to try cross stitch, now that I had the environment to permit a project such as this. My original thought was that cross stitch was rather easy and would be a relaxing pastime, I have never been more wrong.
Due to my misled preconceptions of cross stitch, I decided to start big, by using a huge (around A1 size) cross stitch pattern PDF, and sewing through chiffon onto Aida fabric.
The original image, the cross stitch pattern is based on:
Bust of Female Nude, Pierre - Paul Prud'hon, nude painting, Neoclassicism
The Result:
Due to the fact that I am clearly glutton for punishment, not only did I decide to complicate matters by working on a large scale and through chiffon, I also decided to make life more difficult for myself by fading out areas of the image to make it look less solid.
Whilst working on the pattern, I realised that looking closely at the image in cross stitch made it seem distorted, which I quickly realised was due to each stitch representing a kind of pixel of colour, which would make more sense visually from a distance. Fortunately for this particular pattern, the size of the Aida fabric squares (4mm) was specified, however this is not always the case and as an illustrator, I know that choosing the correct size of Aida fabric square is much like choosing a resolution in dpi (dots per inch), which can lead into question, how many colours and how large the cross stitch pattern is intended to come out.
From this experience I found through troubleshooting on the internet, that there are in fact websites, which allow the user to create their own specific cross stitch patterns using their own imagery. This made me consider how I could convert my own paintings into a cross stitch pattern.
Now that I have created work in stitch, I have found that the end result is both gratifying and tactile. Due to finding this experience so enjoyable, I have decided that for my Concept project I am going to explore how stitch and paint can be combined. I feel that this is relevant to my practice because last semester I spent a large portion of time researching mediums that I could combine with paint, an I feel that I have inadvertently come ascots such an interesting medium. Stitch is a predominant medium in which I chose to work during my fine art National Diploma and Foundation in college, which means I am already aware of how to achieve certain outcomes, and feel that I could definitely learn more. Furthermore I feel that as this semester for my Concept module, I intend to research the human hand in as many different ways as possible, stitch as aforementioned I find to be very tactile, which I feel is fitting to my subject.
Cross stitch pattern purchased from:
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/XSquaredCrossStitch?ref=l2-shopheader-name
(Fitzpatrick, 2014)
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