In 2015, I created a total of 11 pieces of hand work and more. My goal was to create one piece every month and I almost achieved that.
This week as I read about a prolific artist who creates 100 pieces a year, I look at my work for last year and wonder how I can do better. Yes, its a different medium and it requires more time to create textile art but I’ll still like to improve. It took a lot of hard work to stay on track with last year’s goal. So I don’t know how I’m going to top that. In addition to all that I do, this year I’m taking on additional challenges like my Stitch The Sketch project.
Having said all that, I’m very very happy with the growth I see in my work and I’ll like to share the pieces with you. Here’s a photo gallery of all the work I completed last year. It was largely a year of “hand work”. In addition to the pieces in the hand series, I created some others too (just as many as I did in the hand work series). Most of these pieces haven’t made it into my online gallery yet. Subscribers to my newsletter though, saw each of these pieces as soon as they were completed. Otherwise, these are never before shown pieces. Here they are – all in one place:
Artwork Created in 2015
- Bread and Butter B/W
- Bread and Butter – Color
- All Hands on Deck
- Splash
- Little Drops of Water
- Mobiles # 1
- Pomegranate and Lime
- Fun Cityscape
- Circle Time
- Two After Two PM
- Serenade at Sunset
A Detailed Look at Each Work
I kicked off the hand work series with “Bread and Butter”. And for the next couple of pieces, I was bent on keeping all pieces in the series in the same black and white color palette but with “All Hands on Deck”, I started to allow myself to be seduced by color. You can see the hand series here.
With “Splash” and “Little Drops of Water”, I introduced large expanses of negative space. Large negative spaces can be daunting if you don’t know what to do with them. I chose to do minimal stitching in these spaces.
I ended the year by creating “Two after Two PM” and “Serenade at Sunset”. By the time I got to these two pieces, I realized I was doing less and less thread drawing so I made a conscious effort to incorporate more line art using stitches.
You’ll see what I’m talking about when you see the two pieces in question. I can’t show them until I know the outcome of contests in which I entered them (per contest rules). In between working on the hand work series, I created some other pieces too.
“Circle Time” was inspired by Sonia Delauney’s work. I talk all about that here.
click through to see the images in Circle Times gallery
Mobiles #1 is next. I’ve written about “Mobiles #1” here.
Click through to see the images in “Rhythm #1″‘s gallery
The next piece “Pomegranate and Lime“, I created for a SAQA Trunk show. The show will go around the country to help viewers understand the kind of work textile artists do.
Click through to see the images in “Pomegranate & Lime’s gallery”
Finally, “Fun Cityscape” was a labor of love. It took me an entire year to complete. I didn’t put a plan on paper for this piece. It was 100% improvisational and purely done based on color.
Click through to see the images in “Fun Cityscape”‘s gallery
Conclusion
So here you have it, an entire year’s worth of hand work and more. Each piece taught me something new and showed me what I was made of. I discovered new passions and learned that the hardest part of doing anything always occurs in the beginning. And that is one of the biggest lessons of 2015 for me.
Starting is always hard but if you can get over the hump, chances are you’ll make it to the end.
I hope you enjoyed this review. I can’t wait to read your comments.
Warmest Regards,
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