27.4.21 - Drawing with Stitch - Toad and Mushrooms

When I thought about my project theme and the idea of potions and spells, I remembered the highly poisonous death cap mushroom and decided to use it for imagery. Since the calico has a canvas-like quality, I tried painting the shapes with acrylic before stitching around them. I exaggerated the warm and cold colours but tried to keep them looking subtle like the mandrakes that I thought were more successful. I think the final thing looks quite endearing but the deadly poisonous element is not implied, so to improve I would have to think of ways to make it look less friendly. I don't particularly like the finish of the acrylic paint on the fabric so for my next pieces I will continue to use watercolour.


Death Cap' Mushrooms Sicken 14 in California | Live Science

(image from https://www.livescience.com)

Looking back at where my project started, I decided to do something from my toad photographs and made this little embroidered sample. Instead of stitching straight on to the fabric like I have been doing, I made the frog shape separately, painted and then stitched it on, so it has a nice rough edge that I really like and slightly more three dimensionality. I think if I make another toad piece I would like to add beads like I mentioned in the post about the museum artefacts and maybe include different fabrics and threads. Like last time, I made a couple of graphite rubbings as an experiment and thought they looked quite mystical, like some kind of hieroglyph or ancient symbol.

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