Texture

A friend of mine (Hey Patsy!) loaned me her (poor lonely) Embellisher machine to try out.
Can you say "Hooked"?
Some of you that read my blog may not know exactly what an embellisher machine is.
I'll give you a quick run down.
It's set up almost exactly like a sewing machine except there is no thread and no bobbin.
What ?! you say.
The needles (this one has 5 needles where a regular sewing machine only has one - ok, they can have a double needle but..jeez..just stay with me here).
The needles have little bards on the ends of them that, when you run two (or more) pieces of fiber under the machine, pull at the fibers of fiber (especially wool) and mesh them together.
It felts the fibers together.
One thing that you will see a lot in fiber art (or any art FTM) is to work with a photograph of an object.
I love working with a photo of something that has a lot of texture.
Like this rusted plate.
Or the weathered door it's attached to. Or the highly textured surfaces of this topiary that I am working on.
Wow. Look at the texture on this bark.
When I printed the photo out, I could really see all the shades of blue on this tree.
Can you see that when you enlarge the photo?
Nice green color also.

Yesterday I started working in my sketchbook, drawing out the bark.

Today I'll make a study of the colors and begin to add them to my drawing.

I am planning on making a study of bark texture on the embellisher.

In fiber- with a little of this

and a little of that.

Gotta love The Mad Scientist form of creating mixed media fiber art.