Louise Smith

5 x 2 inches, hand embroidery and hand-painted ribbons on hand-painted silk.  A view of the Burrard Bridge, Vancouver, BC.

I forgot to take photos in progress but here’s a photo showing the offstage shenanigans.

I’ve taken the photo too early and I’ll probably add a few tiny stitches in post-production.

I painted a blue wash first, then hand-painted the mountains and treeline on top of that.  The groups of white dots are lights from houses in the distance and they’re done in shiny and glittery thread although the camera doesn’t pick that up.

I glued the ribbons to the background but they’re also held in place by some hopefully discreet stitches.  I coloured the ribbons (originally white) in two different ways: Fabric Fun Pastel Dye Sticks, or Pebeo Setasilk paint.  The dye sticks gave me more vibrant colours and I could keep going over with sticks in different shades until I was happy with the results.  After ironing to set the colour (through tracing paper, to keep my iron clean) they leave a more matte finish, making them a better choice for the concrete bridge supports.  The Setasilk lets the ribbon keep its full sheen and is a better choice for the boats.

The sparkly lights on the bridge and their reflections are done in Candlelight metallic yarn and the rest of the water in various shades of Sulky embroidery thread.  You may notice that the reflections get less vibrant as they approach the bottom of the picture, further from the light source. I sewed with Candlelight all the way to the bottom as usual, then “submerged” the foreground sparkles by sewing over them with blue Sulky thread.

The bridge is not anatomically accurate in every detail.  I’m no engineer.  But let’s call it artistic license!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This entry was posted on Monday, February 29th, 2016 at 10:13 am and is filed under Posts 2010-2019. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.