Part 4 Analysing colour, texture and proportion

Analysing colour, texture and proportion

For this task I need to do some colour, texture and proportion matching.  I've not done a wrapping requiring proportion before and I'm a bit uncertain how to make the judgements.

I have been reminded that when I first got The Art of Embroidery by Francoise Tellier-Loumagne  I was intrigued by the image of the mouldering orange.  I let some oranges from my fruit bowl go mouldy and took a picture. This is the first image for my analysis.

I started with a list of textural words particularly for the mould; soft, furry, bumpy, pitted were all words that helped me to decide what sort of thread to use. Because I see the mould as the prominent feature here with the orange receding into the background I thought soft wool would work for the mould and because my orange words were smooth and shiny I went down the route of silks.  The paint was easier to manage than the thread - I never seem to have quite the right shade (no matter what my husband says).

The second colour down is too dark and  I could have done with something lighter after the blue. I felt that I could go on and on with the threads for this.

Wrapping for the mouldy orange

My second image is a birthday card done on an i-pad.  It has lots of bright colours and I think it will be a challenge.  I like it because it's innovative and not afraid to shout.

Birthday card by Sue Spivey

The image itself looks quite flat so I chose standard six strand thread.  The texture comes from the marks on the page so the stitches would be crucial here.  I did my paint samples in acrylics and I only have very basic colours so I did lots of mixing and struggled a bit.  The darkest blue was too intense  and the green was troublesome but turned out OK in the end.  I'm not entirely happy with the two tones of red;  I didn't manage the paint very well and when it came to threads I'd not really got anything approaching the brick colour I needed. Nevertheless I'm fairly happy with what I did.  When the card and the sample threads are placed together they are clearly intended to match up.

Wrapping for the seascape

This is my third image.  It's a succulent plant that thrives in our garden.  I took the photo last year because I thought the colours were amazing.  What at first sight looks grey is anything but. I used pencil crayons and I find them the most difficult medium to work in.  When I wet them I'm never quite sure what I'm going to end up with.  This was so for the turquoise in this exercise.  I really wanted something more sage so I introduced it in the wrapping.  I think the pinks and purples are good matches but I've overdone the quantity of both of the bright pinks. For the soil I've introduced a pink/beige thread that wasn't noticed originally.  The brown/lilac at the top is a wild card.  It's a varigated thread that later has some green.  

This work has been really very enjoyable and I think I've made a reasonable job of it. One big question I have is

How accurate do I need to be?

Will an approximation do if I haven't exactly the right colour.  I'm not talking about making do I talking about reasonable alternatives.  I'm sure that if I was doing something that was more than an exercise I would buy threads specifically but what's reasonable I want to know?