Stitch details

Stitch details from an (A3) size piece which is currently work in progress and which develops thoughts on reflections seen in high rise buildings ...

The image was printed onto a fine cotton groud using my Epson P600 printer with its archival inks. It was generated from a photograph in Photoshop Elements, folowing, as usual, much manipulating - repeated layering, cutting, resizing, discarding and repositioning - and many changes in colour and tone. 

The threads being used in the stitching are single-colour DMC stranded floss in a restricted colour palette to echo rather than control the colours in the image and to blurr the whole as in a reflection. Stright, precise, vertical running stitch is being used throughout to mimic the precision of the building's structure. 

 

Book making

 A work-in-progress accordion style book on the high rise buildings theme ... ...

Front to which I will add words (a few)

Back to be presented as is (probably). 

All images were generated in Photoshop Elements as is my usual practice, with much cutting and repositioning of layers, resizing and recolouring. 

There is still much to be worked on - words to be added, size and final format to be decided ... and I'm really not sure about those little punched holes, especially and distractingly visible against good light in these photos. 

Blogging and then looking with the critical eye of the viewer not the creator certainly has its purpose!

High rise surprises

I've been working further from an image posted last year at the very beginning of explorations for Inhabit, Brunel Broderers' exhibition in Stroud later this year. During a visit to Sydney, Australia, a few years ago, I saw and photographed this striking high rise building a few years ago just behind Darling Harbour as I passed by on the top deck of a bus. 

Despite a relatively fleeting impression, this image has remained with me and is providing endless hours of visual challenge as I experiment with the structure, reflections and colour within. It seems to be offering me particularly fruitful opportunities to produce abstract images in Adobe Photoshop Elements for our new theme of Inhabit. 

Some recent manipulations are shown here. Other variaions in colour and effects can be found on my Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/charlton_stitcher/ 

In this process, 'What if?' has never been easier. I find it liberating. A large range of different solutions can be generated rapidly on screen at the click of a mouse - and no expensive paper, paint or fabric has been consumed in the process! 

Then there is always the possibility of the unexpected - and also of a happy accident - which intrigues me. 

Above is a happy accident, obtained when I selected and then cut and deleted elements using the layer by cut function in Photoshop Elements. Those fine black lines and the enclosed white areas are the 'ghostlike' remains which are left behind by the editing process when I remove parts of an image. It is a trick I came upon completely by accident when I was working on this version of an image. I've since employed it deliberately in other images - and it's definitely one I've since added to my armoury.

When I work in the way I've described, working repeatedlly into an image, changing colour, selecting, cutting and pasting, and then overlaying small sections of the original to make a new whole, it always surprises me just how far removed from the original image I become (and how quickly) as I try to represent a story. 

This and the lack of ability to predict the final outcome at the start are what fascinate me in the process and keep it fresh for me.