Only a day after Christmas, I have two trees finished in the Central Park piece! I wanted a lot of texture in these areas to provide contrast with the sections behind and around them. So I stitched the trees in French knots using white Silk & Ivory. This thread may pack too tightly in basketweave on 18 ct. canvas, but it makes terrific, fluffy French knots.
To complete the tree on the left side of the canvas, I first had to work the section of rocks behind the tree trunk. In the original pen-and-ink drawing, the rock sections are much darker than the black-and-white foliage sections. I "test drove" any number of stitches, using different threads, to mimic the cross-hatching of the original drawing--but without much luck. I finally chose to keep the same thread as the background of the bridge--DMC #5 perle cotton--in a simple grid pattern of stitches. The fact that the black perle cotton is a true black, unlike the Felicity's Garden used in the foliage section, makes the rocks look darker. This is another situation in which I've had to replicate the overall spirit of the original art without duplicating it line-by-line.
Another larger section of rocks needs to be stitched, and then I can proceed to the finish line: stitching the two hansom cabs that provide the focus of the whole piece.
2 comments:
I have been offline for a couple of weeks and it is lovely to come back and catch up with progress on this piece. The trees look lovely
It is looking really fine! Making a black and white drawing look good in needlepoint is quite a challenge! You have captured the spirit.
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