I did indeed sign up for Sharon B’s Sumptuous Stitches class. And only one lesson in, I’m already glad I did. (Well, actually lesson two arrived in my inbox this morning, but I’m not quite there yet…)
I don’t know what I expected, but what I’m getting so far is a detailed design class that focuses on textiles. Yummy. I’m self-taught in the design area, so it’s rather nice to get some of the details and hints and “whys” that I might have gotten had I actually taken a degree program. A lot of my design learning has been book-taught, or instinct: I think I absorbed a lot from my mother, who was a graphic artist, even while rebelling against art in my growing up years.
In any case, the first lesson was to start with Concept. Mind mapping, which I’ve used to great effect in my writing, and being assured that any method of “just picking one to work first” including throwing darts at the list on the wall was perfectly appropriate has helped.
Googling “mind mapping” will get you more hits than you’ll know what to do with! I liked this step by step one. And this is the one that Sharon included.
I don’t design small. Because I’m expecting to actually FINISH stitching this piece in three to four weeks, I chose to work in the suggested 6 X 4 inch postcard format. It’s a challenge. As I said, I don’t work small. I tend to work both large and detailed. I’m a bit overwhelmed right now with design ideas, most of which need at least 8 X 10 inches to work properly. So narrowing the design down from the concept is difficult. I guess I just need to sit down at lunch today with my sketchbook and work thumbnails until I find one I like.
The concept I came up with was from starting with the mind map center of Peace and working outward. I’ve got quite a few ideas now from that one, but the one I lean toward in an exploration of the sea changes that come from finding inner peace: something that I’m in the process of going through right now. And probably always will be, for that matter! Sea changes, “Those are pearls that were his eyes” and so on. The process that takes a rough piece of glass and turns it into sea glass… I’ve also got ideas on the side of an oyster turning a speck of sand into pearls…
Glass, found objects, high-relief embroidery. These are things that I haven’t done a lot with over the years. So now I need to play with the ideas. When I actually have a sketch I’ll post a copy for you. Lesson two starts the stitching in the low parts of the design – that should go relatively quickly for me, so I feel I can take the next couple days to refine the pictures in my head a bit more.
