West of Whytecliff
Whytecliff Marine Park is near Horseshoe Bay, BC, the same location that inspired my Pebble Beach picture.
I painted the background sky, mountains, and island, and hand-stitched the water. The rocks are mostly machine-stitched with tiny bits of hand sewing where I made minor changes.
The birds in the shallows are some kind of duck, but not regular ducks. I tried stitching them more “accurately” at first but they looked just awful, more like sea monsters than birds. Halfway through unpicking them they started looking bird-like after all, so I decided to leave them semi-impressionistic.
The camera doesn’t pick up that the most distant water is done in shiny thread that glints in the light. I used similar thread around the ducks to represent the splashes from their diving.
* Thought of the Day alert *
I’ve noticed there are a couple of significant moments that happen during the making of each of my pictures. One is when, sometimes scarily close to the end, you look at the back of the work – that terrible place where your threads cross over each other anyhow and all your loose ends hang out – and it looks better than the front. (I try not to look now).
But the other moment is when you have the strange feeling you’re holding a piece of actual landscape in your hand, rather than a piece of stitching, and the stitches you’re making are immediately transubstantiated into trees, or rocks, or whatever. A bit disorienting because in reality you’re working on a small scale. The sensation passes quickly because I’m too aware of my own mistakes, and/or busy making them; but rewarding all the same. It’s the same feeling I’m striving to create, however briefly, in those who view my artwork.