Take a book and stitch

I tried again. This time I used no ink or paint inside the bird's body, but relied on pencil to sketch a bit and stitching to add detail. There are pin pricks on the chest and belly of the bird to add texture. The reeds, wing, beak and head feathers are stitched.

At Karen Ruane's class we have the option of taking a book and changing the pages to integrate stitching. Some people have chosen beautifully illustrated children's books, with so much fun imagery and graphics to play with. Someone else has a book of old lace patterns and I think someone else has a book of intricate tile patterns.

 The two books I first chose just didn't call to me, I felt the artist had done a pretty good job of making the pages beautiful enough. Sorting through my stash of magazines to recycle, I found this pamphlet or brochure from Benjamin Moore paints on paint colours. I sewed some french knots using thread colours from the books on the cover and cut a slit out of the front cover. I then realized that the image from the next page, of paint brushes and pencils showed through very nicely. I left it as it is.

The second page has a smorgasbord of paint brushes and pencils. I cut out another slit and added the french knots here instead. (needs a better photo, no?)  

The next page had a room painted in shades of dark brown and burgundy. Yuck. So in the spirit of 'it is my book and I can do what I like', I pasted over with a few cut out bits with colours from the front.

I attempted to fool around with the wading shore bird, but heavens to bad drawings, it's a yucker.

Even a veil didn't help.

In this version, I have used pencil instead of ink, and not put any paint into the wing. There are pin pricks on the chest and belly for texture and stitching inside the wing, beak as well as stitched reeds and head feathers.

The final page of the pamphlet reveals a small cat. I have yet to do any stitching and there are two more pages inside to begin. I think I'll wander over to the paint store tomorrow and get some paint chips that match to see what happens.