Firstly, I discovered a better way of getting the colour to be more like the real thing than the camera shows and so you may notice that the photos are not so yellow-green as they have been up to now. Today's shots are more like the real colour of the materials I'm using - cooler than the older photos where too much blue was removed, but warmer than the original shots which were far too blue. Here you can see progress as made over two or three sessions work this last week:
Moving onto the Brazilian piece and I've been filling in yet more greenery. Sorry about the bleached out look in the foreground of this first shot. Actually, it's not as ill focused as it looks, it's just that the variegated thread goes quite pale at this point and the light reflected off it to quite some degree.
In this second one you can see that I've already begun to add in some of the fine work on the lower left hand side of the piece as well as replacing one dodgy bullion in the top right part of the main rose section. It used to be baggy and ended up making the rose look triangular, now it's rather too long and sticks up, so I may have to do it yet again. I might try anchoring it down more first as I'm not anxious to add any more bullions than I need to to my work list!
Putting in this other detail has improved both my mood doing the piece and the look of the whole thing. The fabric puckering is a problem, but it gets covered with fine stitchery, so I don't need to trouble myself greatly about that. Light still reflecting quite a lot on the lighter green shade of the main stems. I'll have to find a way to improve the lighting by the time I'm ready for the final shots at least!
I'm hoping to get a few more areas done by next week as I really want to finish this piece in the next fortnight or so and then move on to completing the old peacock feather. Clearing two pieces this month and making good progress on a third will feel great!
I was very disappointed to discover the other day that Webshots is closing down! I have over 300 photos of all my work on there and am now looking for another free photo hosting site that allows for creation and easy viewing of albums and that, unlike Flickr, doesn't restrict you to just 200 photos. I also don't want to use a service which requires others to sign up for it in order to see my pix. I also have a Photobucket account, but I'm not keen on how albums work there. So, if anyone has any ideas and recommendations, I'd be interested! I'm looking for free hosting with a decent amount of storage and good album functions.
Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2012
