Self Portraiture

This portrait is influenced by the work of Bernie Leahey and focuses on facial expression, wrinkles and lines. This is my favourite piece within this project because I think that it is more fluid and expressive than my previous piece.

This is the back of the above portrait, I flipped it on Photoshop so that it is the same way around as the front, shown above. The quality of line is less detailed and the fabric is distracting.

Blog Profile Image

I have decided to complete this piece of work by using this as my profile image, rather than developing it into a promotional card. I have added a black border to refer back to my original inspiration of photo booth images and added  some white stitching to suggest a t shirt and add texture to the background. To develope this work I would now like to explore more expressive self portraits.

Promotional Card Ideas

A stitched portrait with a floral background

I have desaturated the image and added some type to create an idea for a promotional card

My stitched portraits

Small portraits with fabric backgrounds based on the photo strip I created below. I like the second and third portraits best.

this is the back of the sample above,

This is a larger portrait on calico. Some of the paper stencil has not washed out of the fabric and the printer ink has run a bit, making some of the fines more dense and black

This is the back of the above sample. The quality of line is quite different because there is less tension on the thread at the back and I have not trimmed the threads. 

This is a 10cm portrait, using  dark blue thread with a fabric background.

 Here I have tried to work in the style of Caroline Kirton, by using applique and drawing the whole figure. I think that my free machining technique is more effective when working more densely into the image. I do not like the quality of the line in this image.

 Here is the back of the above piece. I like the inclusion of the loose threads and think that it makes the whole image more interesting.

Artist reference

Lousie Baldwin's work uses found fabrics, applique, couching, sequins, fraying and free embroidery. She creates images by working on top of patterned fabrics.

Caroline Kirton creates applique and machine embroidered snapshots of her teenage daughters and friends, exploring issues which affect this age group. www.carolinekirton.blogspot.com

Rosie James uses machine stitch to create linear drawings based on the human figure.

Bernie Leahey is a prominent textile artist from Dublin. Her work focusses on fibre art as line. Her beautiful portraits are created by a combination of hand and free machine stitch.

Photo Booth Christmas Card

I produced this photo booth style of portraits for our family Christmas card and like the look of the strip of images.

Self Portraiture Project

I asked the talented Richard Radnidge to take some studio shots of me today for my last coursework project. Here is an edited sample of images.