Saturday, July 24, 2010

Finished the bark piece

I have finished my bark tapestry.  I did a little experimenting with texture, just a few techniques.  The main effect I got was by including some textured yarns, some wrapping the weft around a cable knitting needle, rya knots and some soumak.
still on the loom, needs to be rotated when I eventually hitch off.
I decided, after discussing it with friends and my teacher, to leave one edge slightly shaped, to simulate the uneven edges of tree trunks.  I have used the small tapestry hitching off technique again, so I couldn't have a very uneven edge.

I found this tapestry much quicker than previous ones for several reasons:

  • I used a larger warp (seine twine 18)
  • the weft was thicker, 6 strands of Tapestry Workshop (now known as the Australian Tapestry Workshop) yarns
  • I did not follow a strict cartoon, I used my inspiration photo as a guide and did approximations
  • because of the last point, I did much less unpicking, I could let things go even when they were not quite how I had envisaged them.
I am considering using this image again, or one similar, in the (not immediate) future as I would like to try for some different effects, more 3 dimensional where the sap sticks out from the tree, but did not feel confident enough in my weaving to be trying that yet.

2 comments:

parlance said...

I think you could do a series, with different effects.

Mary said...

Parlance, I am thinking of that. I can't decide if I'll do more bark designs or if I will just focus on textural techniques. My next piece is in the textural theme, not the bark, but I have a lot of images of bark to work from.