Light on the Water
5 x 7 inches, a view of the North Shore from Burrard Inlet. The sky and mountains are hand-painted. I also did some underpainting of the water, trees and sandbars. Then I glued on thread lint and did some stitching for the line of trees on the left, and all the water and sandbars are hand-stitched.
The mini-lighthouse is a Frankenstein’s monster mix of thread, hand-painted ribbon and Tyvek. When I first glued on the little strip of Tyvek representing the whitest part of the lighthouse, it looked too bright and “stuck on” (even though it is). So I poked it with a needle all over, which made it look slightly distressed, dimmed the brightness and made it look much more like it belongs. I may or may not have discovered this by accident during a moment of frustration.
I also found it best to sew the stilts of the lighthouse with lots of horizontal stitches. A few long diagonal stitches might seem like the best way, but I found it looked too detached from the background. In fact the stilts have barnacles attached, so I think the irregularity of horizontal stitches helps suggest that variation in colour and thickness and makes it look more real.