 Fontanelle
Forest by Deborah Forney of Bellevue, Nebraska
"Fontanelle Forest" is my interpretation of a grove of young Cottonwood trees
near my home in Nebraska. The season is late autumn and reflected in the background is the
glow of a new day.
This piece was completed during an 8 -day class taught by Jan Beaney and Jean
Littlejohn entitled "Taking a Theme of Trees." It is not, however, a "class
piece." The design inspiration, composition and execution are original even though I
used the interpretive techniques presented in class.
Inspiration: I selected magazine images that illustrated vertical
linear patterns and the colors of silhouetted trees at sunrise. Drawing on my memory of
the forest near my home, I sketched a small landscape that would be my compositional road
map.
Interpretation: My goal was to create a close-knit grove of trees void
of their leaves but still vibrant with life. The colors suggest a dormant but thriving
forest and the movement of the diagonal branches lift the eyes from bottom to top. I
layered fabrics and threads to recreate the depth of the forest and the texture of the
trees. Because I wanted an organic texture and a composition that left the impression of
trees rather than discernable stitch units, I chose to limit my stitches to couching but
to incorporate numerous threads and textures in fractured vertical and diagonal lines.
Execution: "Fontanelle Forest" is made of six layers:
- Burlap
- Painted 18-count mono canvas (orange acrylic) basted to the burlap
- Transfer dyed velvet cut in wavy strips and bonded to the canvas
- Couched threads (embroidery threads, dyed gauze and coarse twine)
- Black chiffon held in place by the shadow stitches for each tree
- The foreground tree
The final integration of the background trees and the foreground tree was accomplished
by tearing small holes in the chiffon on the two adjacent trees in order to expose some of
the bright orange gauze. |
