Designing and stitching custom embroidery has become a small passion of mine recently, occupying several hours which would have been spent last year painting 20 minute sketches. Though I deeply love both pursuits, the embroidery can be enjoyed as small gifts in ways paintings or sketches aren't always practical, like for little ones. Finding a gender-neutral subject was no trouble here. What baby wouldn't love a toadstool-drum-playing gnome?
I completed a few larger art and stitching projects lately, one of which was this beautiful fraktur-inspired painting (shown unframed). I was inspired by the style of 18th-century Pennsylvania German dower chests, with painted panels. Besides the traditional flower arrangements, they often include personalization like initials or dates indicating a marriage or other significant occasion. I liked trying to duplicate the carved-type somewhat primitive lettering here. Many of the fraktur-inspired paintings I've done before were vertical format, so the horizontal format of this one was also a welcome change. Pencil, pen and watercolor,
8" x 10".
