After finding some time to sit down and finish this piece, I managed to get most of it done. I decided to experiment with different styles of stitching, so for the first half of the piece I used smaller bits of thread and used smaller stitches, I felt that although it looked good, it took longer to stitch and it was difficult to blend the different colours of thread together to get that 'painted' effect. I decided to go ahead and use bigger chunks of thread and bigger stitches. This seemed to work far better and it was a lot easier to blend the different shades of thread together.
I also really liked how the bigger chunks of thread caused bigger ripples in the fabric as I was stitching and gave the fabric life. It almost looks skin like, and I think that's partially due to the colouring of the felt fabric as well as the imagery embroidered onto the fabric. I think this is really interesting and something that I think I might look into this further, perhaps try to link this to my ideas around workplace harassment?
For the third breast design I decided to leave it half stitched, so I had three different embroidered styles in a single piece. I liked the simplicity of the outline, even though this piece was an exploration into thread painting, I think this simple embroidered image works well. I do think these could work well as patches, something that could easily be sold, which is something that I might consider going forward. I was originally looking at the idea of patches and I think this could be something interesting to look into in the next unit. Patches that demonstrate imagery of workplace harassment? Statistics? Slogans and text that represent these issues?
Furthermore, I think I would like to do more of these in the future, but perhaps think about the imagery used and the message I want it to convey. I think this piece is a good exploration into this medium and I think if I had more time I would do many more pieces, but I think I need to look at different methods that are quicker to get a similar effect if I want to develop these pieces further. Overall I'm happy with how this piece came out, and as a standalone piece it looks really effective and interesting to look at, as well as feel and I think that aspect of the work - the materiality of it - is really important in terms of what I'm interested in within my practice.
Another possible development of this piece is the type of material I embroider on? Perhaps I can start to use materials that aren't considered craft materials and use this technique to create some interesting contrasting pieces? This is perhaps something to think about going forward, the type of material I use, as well as the type of imagery.
Things to do next:
- Look into different materials?
- Research different imagery?
- Develop technique, find a quicker method?
- Look into the way material moves/flows/shapes itself?