Showing posts with label Future Embroidery Projects. Show all posts

I mentioned in my last post, on the Green Man, having the Mira Calligraphae Monumenta as a design source.

If you've looked up the prices of the book, and fainted - yes, this is the most expensive book I own. But there are 3 paperback 'extract' books taken from it - one on the calligraphy, one on the pen art and "Nature Illuminated" (the one that would interest us) - $10ish on Amazon for the hardback.

"Nature Illuminated reproduces forty-one pages from the original codex. Those who love and collect beautiful books will be endlessly fascinated by Hoefnagel's imagery and invention. The accompanying commentary identifies and explains the details of Hoefnagel's exquisitely crafted illuminations." (Amazon)

 

I've always wanted to embroider a Green Man. But looking at embroideries of him, I've never seen one that has inspired me to do my own version.

"A Green Man is a sculpture(SP), drawing(SP), or other representation of a face surrounded by or made from leaves(SP). Branches or vines(SP) may sprout from the nose, mouth, nostrils or other parts of the face and these shoots may bear flowers or fruit. Commonly used as a decorative architectural ornament(SP), Green Men are frequently found on carvings in churches(SP) and other buildings (both secular and ecclesiastical)"  (Wikipedia)

Finally I've found a source of inspiration! From the Mira Calligraphae Monumenta, of which I own a copy :

" In 1561-62, Georg Bocskay, imperial secretary to the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I, inscribed the Mira calligraphiae monumenta as a testament to his preeminence among scribes. He assembled a vast selection of contemporary and historical scripts, which nearly thirty years later were further embellished by Joris Hoefnagel, Europe's last great manuscript illuminator. This book, now in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, is reproduced here in complete facsimile form,... Topics include Hoefnagel's nature imagery, which encompasses plants, fruits, and small animals, and its relation to the spread of interest in botany and zoology at the end of the sixteenth century. ......" (Amazon)

Never mind Herbals - I regard this as my best 'natural image' source book for embroideries. Here's a couple of images from it :


The Green Man that inspires me :-


 
 Laid gold passing for his hair and whiskers, with some darker gold for the shadows (eg the underside of his hair), some padding around his eyes and mouth, and the actual face done in needlepainting. The beard would be interesting to do - in silk or in shades of gold metal thread, or a mixture?

The actual eyeballs would be really hard to get correct - I'd have to think about that. Maybe consult with Jane of Chilly Hollow Adventures - she's good at things like that.

I don't plan to do the branches with the acorns that extend out the top sides of his head, or the red thingy on top. Just his face would be enough. I think that I would include the horns, to provide balance in the 'weight' distribution in the piece.

More images :-


Green Man Embroideries

More images from the Mira Calligraphae Monumenta

Firstly, me. I'm on some horrendously strong antibiotics atm, and due for 2 operations in 2 weeks. So please forgive me for being so quiet! I have LOTS of blogging to catch up on!

I found this creature on BibliOdyssey - a great source of images.
from the entry http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2011/07/monstrorum-historia.html -  

Woodcut illustrations from Aldrovandi's 'History of Monsters'

I think he'd be lovely to embroider, with some raised work, feather-type stitching in long and short stitch, a bit of gold used to make scales (or are they feathers on his head?). And it'd be fun choosing a historical technique to do his claws....

Or maybe take a Jacobean approach, and throw in a bit of metallic thread as well?

I think that he'd be lots of fun to embroider, in any case! If you check out BibliOdyssey, don't miss the guy with the big ears!

If you didn’t see that I posted yesterday (about a set of links to free internet ‘palette construction from images’ tools), well, scroll down :-)

I’ve been making embroideries for friends for the last 8 or more months. I’m going crazy. I NEED to get back into the Elizabethan world.

While waiting for some purple thread for the Butterfly, I’ve started the next and final thankyou present – a marigold. I’ll post about that presently.

It’s not a big project, so I’ll be “free” in a month or so, maybe less.

I have my  Elizabethan Historical Sampler sitting there as a UFO. But the whole *point* of the Sampler is to try as many new stitches and techniques as possible. My health just isn’t up to that at the moment – it’s a bit hard to think and learn a lot when you feel ratty. The medical specialist programme I’m now on will guarantee I’ll feel pretty ratty until at least November – but I should be much healthier and stronger at the end of it :-) :-)
So I wanted something that I already had the skills to do, but was Elizabethan (and beautiful, of course).

I made a file of prospective projects, then I chose one after thinking for a day :

It’s the bookmark of a Cope that Julie gave me! The dragon will be especially fun! There’s some silk shading in his wings, the cross and the leaves above too. Surface couching work on the silver thistle (or I’m going to make it surface couched, anyway). Perhaps I’ll use kid for that red patch in the middle? Gold kid. I’ll need plenty of pearl purl, that’s for sure!

Lots of ideas! I’ll be using DMC for the Cope piece although I’d prefer to do it in silk, but it’s too expensive.

My initial choice was this motif :


http://historyofembroidery.blogspot.com/p/samplers.html
 
I just adore the colours in it, and like the lightness of the scrollwork. But it occurred to me that I’d just done lots of split stitching for the Butterfly wings, so didn’t really want to do a repetitive stitch project again so soon.

Meanwhile I’m be Butterflying and Marigolding away :-) I’m a big post behind on the Butterfly – He has a body, legs and antennae now.

My friend SilkLover pointed this project out to me.

It is being run as an on-line class as we speak, but she has heard that it may be released as a kit in the future.

I hope so – I’m in love. Oh! That beaded tassel head on the right!

Details, and an enlargement are at http://www.theessamplaire.com/browse.php/detail/354

Tho it is awfully pricey.

I’ve got a lot planned to do over the next year or so.

I’m about half way through my Sampler

and I think it may take another 6 months to complete. (It’s already taken 6 months). Oh boy, have I learnt a lot!

This will be pushed out a bit by some other projects that I intend to do simultaneously once I get back to it.

Firstly, an illumination,

This creatures appears on the front cover of  one of the hardcopy editions of “World Without End” by Ken Follett.

It is intended as a follow up present to this one

which still needs it’s black background completed. The progression on this piece came to a compete halt when I hit my relapse. Both are intended for Nick.

Nick does so much for me, and deserves far more of my art in return. I want to finish the “Ick” piece as soon as I can – as soon as I’m steady enough to paint black into those tiny white corners!

I am also doing Mary Corbet’s Long and Short Stitch lessons, admittedly at my own pace. I started them last night.

And then, a bit further down the line – a project that makes a basket from thin card and (lovely) material, the card being printed with old botanical prints and then aged. I have an old vintage nightgown in that apricot/beige colour they had then, which should look just fantastic to use as the material inside..

This is the first step :

http://needleprintprojects.blogspot.com/2009/08/basket-projet-part-1.html

We are still downloading panels to be aged and trimmed with bias binding.

When the sampler is finished I may either

a) do a completely unexpected project, or a Les Turpin Delport kit or something like that, or

b) start on something I have my heart fairly firmly fixed upon to do at some point……………

This is an embroidered Book Binding from the British Library of Book Bindings. I may not do this exact one (there are several, similiar) but the idea is a large flower in satin thread in long and short stitches, framed by silver purl which has been heaving padded to form a frame.

 

The other project that talks to me (and know you know all my embroidery project aspirations!) is this piece :

It appears near the beginning of Clare Hanham’s book “Beginner’s Guide to Silk Shading”, and is accompanied by the comment

“….was given to me by Mrs Elizabeth Boswell”.

It would be quite a challange to get the period colours selected, and placed correctly.(I’m not thinking about legal issues here)

To me, this would be a very advanced project for sometime later down the track.

Firstly, I've had stuff going on, so haven't been able to embroider. But it's calling to me!

I was Image Googling "Tudor Rose" last night and found this.

- a large shoulder bag in the shape of a tudor rose, http://www.savvyseams.com/bags/flower.php



I'd like to make one - in jewel colours, in a brocade for the top petals and velvets for the lower petals.
Thinks about appropriate embroidery/embellishment for that strapwork in the middle ....

One day.

The court of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II produced nothing more amazing than the "Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta", a brilliant amalgamation of two arts - calligraphy and miniature painting.

The project began when Georg Bocskay, a pre-eminent scribe) assembled a vast selection of contemporary and historic scripts ranging from the latest Italic and humanist writing to antique Roman and German Gothic.

Years later, at Rudolf's behest, court artist Joris Hoefnagel filled the spaces on each manuscript page with images of fruit, flowers, insects and other natural minutiae. This marvel of the Central European Renaissance is now in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum.










This last not being an original, but reproduced by the SCA scribe Kayleigh McWhyte

I'm lucky enough to own the entire copy of Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta, in it's own hard slipcase.

As you can see, for many pages there's a painting, and there's some gorgeous calligraphy.

An idea for a project would be to needlepaint the picture, and do the adjacent calligraphy and put it together as one piece. (I could paint the picture but I like the idea of combining the two mediums.).

That would be cool, hey?

More pages can be seen by Image Googling "Mira Calligraphiae"