The Beginning of a Succulent Series

The Fast Friday Challenge for this month was announced a week ago, and I got a late start. This month, we are to do something monochromatic and use perspective in designing our piece. I have some thoughts for perspective with a Sea Glass piece, but don’t want to only use one color, so I decided to start a new series.

This close-up of a succulent seems to show perspective well. I converted the photo to greyscale and increased the contrast so I could concentrate on line and value.

A medium green-blue fabric was selected, and a line drawing stitched on it in the same manner as for Clam Cove III which is still in progress.

These shapes are mostly larger and simpler than the ones in Clam Cove III. I thought again that I would cut different values of fabric shapes to define the leaves, but I changed my mind again and decided that this piece needs paint.

I used my Setacolor transparent paints to add the darker values in the image. I went back after I took this photo to make the darkest darks just a bit darker.

There’s something to be said for turning your work upside down while drawing or painting. I did just to keep my hand from smudging the wet paint, and almost immediately noticed the whole leaf and a half that didn’t get sewn with thread. I sketched it with pencil before I continued and stitched the last few lines after I did the painting.

My thoughts are to layer and quilt, before I go back in and add highlights with white or another light valued paint. I am hoping to achieve the same textured look like I did on Coyote Hills Marsh.