Interpreting Natural Textures in Fabric

I spent my afternoon walking through my local conservatory.  It was such a treat to get away from the city for a couple of hours and just enjoy the tropical flowers and lush plants from all over the world.

Of course, I can’t leave my camera at home and so I’ve got dozens of photos of lovely plants to use as inspiration.  I find that the “macro” image is the one that interests me the most, so I rarely seem to end up with the whole flower or plant in the frame.

One game I like to play is imagining how I would interpret the photo in fabric, mixed media and fiber.  In fact, I’d like to go through with you and share some of my thoughts on how I’d create a fiber art piece.

Take a look and see how you’d interpret the same image – and please leave a comment if you’d like to share

I love the heavily mottled leaves of these plants – I’d make this one out of hand-dyed fabric and then machine embroider the veins on.  Hand-painting the fabric could be a great challenge too – how about dripping a fluid fabric paint like Dy-Na-Flo to reproduce some of the splotches and mottled colors?

This shot is actually from underneath the plant, with the sun shining from above.  I’d like to try making this one from a single piece of green fabric, but then heavily machine-embroidering all the veins and ribs of the plant on.  As an alternative, I might try using a dry brush method of fabric painting (thicker paint, used sparingly with a dry brush) get the shading and the thicker ribs.

I’ll share more photos and techniques tomorrow!

images: © C Findlay-Harder