Winter Series 2, a tale of woe.

This should be Winter Series 1 but it was overtaken by other Winter piece so has to settle for 2nd place!

I started a post about this in January…….

It began as a sketch across the Wharfe valley  by Collingwood. It made it through the initial paint stage and was level pegging past the first stitch and into the dye and stain phase.

 

 

Here there was a distinct lack of love, so it stayed out on the washing line through several storms, violent attacks with more stain and scrubbing brushes until…….

The problem has been spaces, letting them be, using them to balance the intense areas, and on the whole failing. There is no resting place in this one. The first error was to do the woodland across the valley. This is so strong (fun to do) that it dominated the whole piece.

The foreground should be a nonentity, an annoying fringe to look through, obscuring the view and the understanding of the landscape beyond. It began much darker,  but the brushwood  tried to be the centre of attention so got itself unpicked. Perhaps the amount of stitching on the distant hills was the domino mistake,  it has meant that everything to the front of them also had to be stitched heavily. Even though the thread was a polyester ecru colour and so resisted the dyes, the effect lacks contrast. Perhaps  embrace the gloom and work more blue/black ink into the brushwood. That is a mix of  variegated cotton and  grey polyester thread …….lose the subtle colour shifts or gain contrast?

The dark fabric along the valley was once a solid piece,  ripping into it helped  a lot – there are glimmers of light now. Bleach and detergent helped to pick out some more but I’m getting worried by the level of abuse this fabric has taken. Maybe a final splash with paint? Lighten the storm clouds, add some acidy yellow/green (Dulux ‘Expectation’)  into the foreground?

It is on a stretcher at present, being tortured back into shape, there may be some more done to it to alleviate the gloom, but it will be done kindly,  probably while thinking happy thoughts and involve biscuit/cake/crumpet eating.

Well I can hope…..