Tag: Dreams of Amarna
Dreams of Amarna – Progress on the Map
Progress On The Map of Amarna
You may recall that having worked most of the Map of Amarna, I then ran into a brick wall, and could not decide which thread to use for the last, rather extensive element – the depiction of the cultivation.
I decided, in the end, that I would use the more golden of the plain silk threads, but rather than spacing the stitches widely I would stitch quite densely, creating a sort of background pattern of tête de boeuf stitches. Then I began to worry that this would be visually too weighty and might even create the impression of a sort unlikely to be accurate given that in Mary Chubb’s time the villages were probably groups of smallholdings..
So instead, although some of the cultivation (on the eastern side of the river, running in a narrow band the length of the site) is worked in a single colour (or will be, when I finish it), the western side of the river will have some patches where the stitches are worked in one or other of the variegated silks.
Patches On The Map of Amarna
The close up shot shows one of those patches already in place, with the single colour on the other side of the river and the modern village in a different variegated thread.
Or at least I think it will. It would not be the first time I’ve had a bright idea that really didn’t work when I tried it. I am prepared for the possibility that I will have to unpick all the variegated threads and restitch in a single colour!
I am not alone. . .
Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie (picture from Wikipedia)
I recently had a trip to London, when I managed to fit in a brief visit to The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology as part of my background research for the Dreams of Amarna panels. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie excavated at Amarna during the 1890s, finding and recording a fine painted pavement, since destroyed, of which Mary Chubb, who wrote the book which inspired the Dreams of Amarna project, would certainly have known. He also trained Howard Carter, whose discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb sparked the Egyptological fever that took hold in Europe and indirectly provided the impetus for Mary’s career.
I arrived late in the day, and really didn’t have much time to look around, but I did tell the lady at the desk why I was interested, and was rather startled when she said “Oh, then there is something you must see!” and took me to see it. It turned out to be a modern tapestry, woven at the Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Centre in Saqqara (itself a place to set Egyptologists a-tingle) and named “Dahsur Lake” . The tapestry is very reminiscent of the Amarna style, full of life and colour, vigorous and joyful. The weavers produce their panels without sketches behind their looms, and I am astonished at what they have produced.
Clearly I am not alone in finding the art and story of Amarna inspiring. I wonder, will I produce something as good?
Dreams of Amarna – The Patches on The Map
After finishing the text and the villages on the Map, I need to decide what to use for the cultivation… You may recall from my earlier post that I have decided on the stitch I’m going to use – tête de boeuf stitch – but that I’ve not quite worked out what thread to use.
Trial Patches On The Map
I’ve stitched a variety of trial patches, using stranded cotton, flower thread, pearl cotton, and several different silks, and now all (all!) I have to do is make a decision. I’ve propped up the fabric in the living room and stand staring at it every chance I get!
So far, I feel sure I won’t be using the pearl cotton (too chunky) or the flower thread (also too chunky), but that leaves me two variegated silks (one pale green shading to pinkish purple and one brighter green shading to terracotta) and two plain silks (one slightly darker than the colour of the fabric, and one the same colour as the stranded cottons I used for the contour lines. I’ve tried very hard to get a photo that does reasonable justice to the various threads and colours, but I don’t think that the one I’ve got here helps very much…
Sorbello Stitch Village
I chose Sorbello stitches to represent the modern villages. These are worked at a very small scale, as you can see from the thread count. Again, had I followed the cartographer’s symbols, I would have used something like Jacobean Couching, but I felt that this stitch in fact reflects the idea of buildings rather better. I’ve used the same gold-shading-to-purple thread for all the modern villages, both the names and the associated areas. It doesn’t draw the eye, in real life, quite as much as you might expect.
Dreams of Amarna – Approaching The Final Decision on the Map
Map of the dig site at el-Amarna
You may recall that the first large element of the panels for Dreams of Amarna that I am stitching is a map of the site shown in Mary Chubb’s book.
It was easy to decide that I wanted to use reverse herringbone stitch for the contours of the high ground around the site, and unbroken lines of chain stitch for the Nile.
The compass rose and the titles were more difficult, although I made a decision eventually.
Now, however, I am near to finishing the text, and I can’t really put off my final decision any longer.
Areas of cultivation are shown on the original map using stars drawn roughly using four strokes. The obvious choice is to use Star Stitch, which exactly replicates the symbol used by the cartographer, but I don’t want to do that.
The aim of my stitching is not to reproduce a painting or a drawing, or even to reproduce those effects. I want to use embroidery techniques to produce impressions and effects that couldn’t be produced any other way, but that are inspired by the subject.
Tricky.
I finally settled on a stitch, after considerable thought and several hours leafing through my (never-ending shelf of) embroidery books – tête de boeuf stitch. But I’m still trying to work out what thread to use, and at what scale. So I’ve worked several test patches, and when I’ve finished the other stitching (the text and the villages), I’m going to wash and iron the whole thing and then sit back and look at them for a while…
Dreams of Amarna – More Research
This weekend I went to the exhibition “Tutankhamun – His Tomb and His Treasures” at the Museum of Museums near Manchester’s Trafford Centre. Partly just for fun, and partly because Mary Chubb mentions the huge excitement over Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb as some of the “social background”, if you will, in her book “Nefertiti Lived Here”. I was hoping to catch some of the flavour of that excitement as well…
Cloisonne Feather Pattern on the Sarcophagus
It was an excellent exhibition. The usual introductory hall, with panels describing ancient Egypt and the development of Egyptology, but this one also included a reproduction of the Rosetta Stone. I knew that one of the languages was hieroglyphic and the other was Greek, but I hadn’t quite registered that the third was demotic, which was the “workday” script of ancient Egypt, as it were. Then there were films about Tutankhamun, and about Howard Carter, and then we turned a corner and found ourselves face to face with a reproduction of the antechamber of the tomb, just as Carter would have seen it. There is a British Museum page showing one of the original photos here. Except that doesn’t begin to give you any sense of the impact, because nearly every item is covered in gold. It speaks volumes for the self-discipline of Carter and his colleagues that the whole affair did not degenerate into a snatch and grab. I was too startled and overwhelmed to take a photo at this point, although non-flash photography was permitted.
Although I knew, of course, that the tomb contained a mixture of Amarna-period pieces and later pieces, I wasn’t aware that the cloisonné on the middle sarcophagus (close-up above) was an explicitly Amarna period design. So maybe I need to do a small patch using that pattern.
I took quite a lot of photos, which came out, on balance, much better than I expected them to, and may even turn out to be interesting and useful.
The Hippo In The Shop
The Faience Hippo Finished
There was a short exhibition at the end which included some of Howard Carter’s watercolours – he was clearly a very fine archaeological artist and illustrator, and then we were sent out though the inevitable shop. Where I couldn’t fail to take one final photo…!
Still More Work on the Map of Amarna
Section of the Amarna Map
This photograph shows a completed section of the Amarna Map, which demonstrates most of the design choices I have made as I went along.
The long lines to the left in the picture are worked simply in Chain stitch and represent the Nile that runs beside the site. Small tête de boeuf stitches represent the cultivation, represented by hatched stars on the original map.
The text is worked in Back Stitch. It isn’t perfectly regular, but it isn’t really intended to be, either. I knew that all my favourite line stitches would be too heavy and detailed for the scale and the intention I have, so it is deliberately chosen to be as simple as I can make it.
Remember there will be areas competing for attention here and that what I want is a general impression that the viewer can then look at more closely if they want details.
There is at least as much again to do before the Map is finished – that’s why I have tagged this post “Perseverance”!
Some Work On The Map of Amarna
Contour Lines on the Map of Amarna
Fortunately for me, I’d already had plenty of ideas for working the Map of Amarna for the first of the background panels, and in fact, as soon as I decided to include it there was one section about which I was absolutely certain – the contour lines. I’ve worked them in Reverse Herringbone Stitch. The fabric between the lines is thus slightly raised – padded by the threads behind it. I got this far on the map quite some time ago and was very pleased with myself when it turned out Just As I Hoped.
Compass Rose on the Amarna Map
Then I moved on to another section and found myself struggling. In the drawn map, the compass rose is indicated by three lines. When I tried that, it looked clunky and rather sad. So I returned to my stitch dictionaries, and looked for line stitches. Cable Chain Stitch was an obvious choice, as it has been a favourite of mine for years, and the outer ring is worked in Closed Feather Stitch. I used two Caron Collection threads in the same colourway here – a single strand of the heavy pearl cotton type which has three strands (Watercolours, I think it is called), and the much finer one, which I think is Wildflowers. It is interesting to watch the colour changes as they appear very different and have different emphases in the different threads.
I may yet decide to run a “shadow” to one side or the other of the arrow, using a simple stitch such as stem stitch, to throw the satin stitch into stronger relief, but for the moment I am happy that the flatter outer ring creates the illusion of a raised compass rose, while still being clearly something stitched.
Dreams of Amarna – The Title on the Map
I described the first of the background panels I am planning for the Dreams of Amarna a few months ago. I will describe some of the other stitching I have done on it in another post, but I have been racking my brains since I began stitching, trying to work out how to embroider the title.
The challenge I am facing with the whole map is that I want it to be clear that it is embroidered, not screen-printed, but at the same time, I don’t want to show off every stitch I know or produce something that is so heavily stitched that it pulls the final pair of panels out of balance. So far, every time I have tried something it has been too prominent or too fiddly or Just Plain Wrong. While this is disheartening, one of the advantages of the butterfly mind is that I could stow the piece away and work on something else while waiting for inspiration.
A Corner Of The Map Of Amarna
Then suddenly, a few days ago, the Gordian Knot was loosed. I’m using ordinary stranded cotton (two strands) in the darkest shade I am allowing myself. It’s not overdyed or textured, and I am using the same thread for both rows of text.
The large text uses the Chain Stitch with Buttonhole Edging that I learnt in Month Five of the Tudor and Stuart Goldwork Masterclass. I knew it would be useful as soon as I saw it! It is slightly fiddly to work at this scale, especially using stranded thread, but importantly, it doesn’t look fiddly when it is in place.
The smaller row of text below it is in split stitch. This provides a narrow, unbroken line, again clear enough to be readable, but equally not drawing attention to itself. If I decide later that this row is a little too unassuming I can always whip the split stitches!
This now means that I know what I am doing with this panel for a while yet, and can just get stitching on it. Unfortunately the transfer that I made has worn off the centre of the fabric so a large section of map will have to be retraced and reapplied, but that can wait until I have finished the titles.
I’m greatly relieved. I’ve now got plenty to work on while I think of the next idea…
The Felucca Is Finished
The Felucca
I have finished the first trial of the Felucca design. As I always say of these design fragments, I do not yet know whether they will make it to the final piece.
You can barely see the stitching on the coastline – I used a fine thread and spaced the stitches far apart. For the cargo, I crammed the stitches as close to one another as I could. The sails are worked in Satin Stitches rather than darning, and the spars in Stem Stitches. I’ve decided I am happy with the pinkish tinge on the sails, and the greenish Nile is just as I imagined it would be.
I think it has worked. The reflections of the sails bring the whole piece to life, and I added some small stitches to provide an impression of a reflection of the spars.
The Felucca – Second Stage
The Felucca - the Second Stage
I’m afraid that this photo isn’t as good as I hoped it would be, but it does show the progress I am making on the Felucca.
I realised that not only did I need to have the sails completed before I put all of the sky in, but I needed to put the Nile in before I put in the reflections.
So I’ve done the Nile – nearly. If you look carefully you will see that there is a small section of Nile behind the Felucca which hasn’t been finished yet. I’ve used the same irregular darning stitch as I used for the sky, and run in the reflections using long straight stitches in the spaces between the rows of green. I need to put a few more stitches in yet, but I’ve run up against rather a headache which I need to resolve.
I need to do the land behind the Felucca. I was intending to use a paler version of the reddish-brown thread I’m using for the hull and the spars. However, when I put it in, it really didn’t work. No, I mean it. Not At All. I’ve since tried a couple of other threads with no marked success, so I need to spend some time finding a suitable thread.
If you look at the photo on the original post, the tones of the sky, the Nile and the elements of the felucca are not quite correctly reproduced in my embroidered piece. Part of this is because the base fabric isn’t white so everything is turning out a little darker than I expected. I think it will work in spite of the changed tones, but I am anticipating working the design again in a different form or scale, maybe using different threads, so if in the end I don’t like it I will still feel I have learnt something useful!