New Cartoon

Now that I have finished my daughter's portrait, I am planning my next weaving on my loom.  I had thought about doing an ocean piece from a vacation photograph from the Bahamas, but it was not speaking to me.  I tried to like it and had already bought the yarn for it.  However, I figure if I am going to spend a month or so with a piece, I better really like it.  I learned that the hard way with knitting.  I had someone discourage me from knitting a sweater when I first started.  She talked me into knitting a vest.  I never liked the vest, and never really liked the yarn I chose.  Therefore it sat for years.  The next person I went to about knitting said never begin a project unless you really love the yarn and the piece.  You are going to be spending a lot of hours with it, you had better be in love with it from the beginning or you won't finish it.   That advice has stuck with me, and works well with tapestry weaving.  Therefore, I returned the yarn for the ocean piece, and exchanged it for a flower piece.

I love flowers; I have painted flowers since I was a teenager.  I continue to paint and draw flowers.  So, I went back to photographs that I had taken last spring and pulled one out that would work with the warp that I have on my Macomber.  I took the photograph, worked with it a bit in Photoshop, and here it is:

For whatever reason, I don't like weaving from a photograph.  I prefer to redraw the piece and color it myself.  I want it to have a more impressionistic look rather than a more photorealistic look.  The piece shown below is an 8x8" drawing that I drew and colored with these fabulous Japanese art markers.  I then uploaded it into the computer.

Next, using a program called tiler recommended to me by another weaver, I printed out the piece on 6 sheets of paper from my computer.  I taped them together, and now I have a full-size cartoon of my hand drawn and colored piece.  

I have started to gather my yarns and make my butterflies, but will need more time to get all of them together.  I look forward to starting this piece, which should be approximately 20x20" when complete.

Peony Cartoons

I drew and colored my cartoons.  I see some problems, but now I am debating whether to fix them in the cartoons, or whether I fix them in my choice of yarns.

In the blooming peony, I colored in with a purple which was too dark.  In the middle section with the dropping petals, there are two problems:  the peony seems to float in space, and there is a disconnect between the bottom background and the upper background that makes the drawing look unconnected.  I might just work on those in yarn selection rather than recoloring.  Recoloring the drawing means I need to go and buy another couple of art markers.  The final picture of the seed pods also has a green that is too dark and I really need another couple of greens to make the drawing work better.

I love the markers.  I have used pencils in the past, but I think I like the markers better, although they are expensive.  Now, on to warping my looms!