Tag: Pooh-Bah
Pooh-Bah – a closer look
I thought it might be interesting to have a closer look at the way I am trying to bring Pooh-Bah and his ridiculously deep and fluffy fur to life (honestly, I think if I tried to find the body of the dog through the fur I’d lose my arm to the elbow!). It’s very much being invented on the spot, and although the approximate idea is the same, each animal is taking it differently.
So here you see, probably, stage three or four.
I’ve done the eye and the muzzle and lower jaw, quite densely. I tried to find some of the shadows of the ear and under the chin, and the highlights around his ruff.
And from that point it was really a case of “scribbling” my first layer of stitches in very sloppily worked Cretan Stitch. No, that’s unfair. At this stage I’m not trying to be very precise in my stitch placement, so “scribbling” is a reasonable approximation. But I’m trying to balance that sense of a layer of colour with leaving enough space for the next layers and the sense of the depth of fur. I’m not being precise, but “sloppy” isn’t quite right either!
Now look at Pooh-Bah at a somewhat later stage.
The next layer of stitches is in a lighter thread (Pooh-Bah is a creamier colour than the photo I have), and I’ve used much shorter stitches around his muzzle and his face, to suggest the shorter fur. As I move outwards, I’m trying to stitch into the layers below, tangling my stitches to help build the fluffiness.
You can see the same thing happening with the tail, here. There’s a sort of basic “scribble” layer, in this case in something more like Herringbone Stitch – although, if you think about it, it’s not hard to mutate Herringbone into Cretan! I used two strands of stranded cotton for the scribble layer, but I’m beginning to go over it in single strands. I’m hoping that when I come to the final layer, I will be able to tangle it into previous layers enough to camouflage the order of work.
Pooh-Bah coming together..
Pooh-Bah is going to be difficult. I’m trying to Trust The Process here, since I’ve come up with a technique that seems to work, but the Chow’s fur is so different to the fur and feathers I’ve done so far that I’m not at all sure it’s going to make sense.
Besides, the technique makes enormous demands on my observation and imagination, both at once. Observation, because I have to see the details in my source photo that make the animal believable. Imagination, rather trickier, because my stitching is not using tiny dots of ink on paper, but relatively large stitches on fabric.
What my relatively large stitches have to do is to combine to create the effect of much smaller dots of colour, to create something lively – and alive – and yet definitely stitched. So as I’m stitching, I’m trying to arrive at an interaction of stitches and shadows that works.
This is not, yet, achieved.
But at least now I think I have enough in place that I have markers that I can work between. I’ve not got the proportions or the underlying shading quite right yet, and I’ve not quite worked out how to get the sense of the deep, fluffy fur.
But I do think Pooh-Bah will eventually approve my efforts!
Starting Pooh-Bah the Chow
It’s been a while since I did any work on the Placidus panel, or more strictly, on the various elements thereof. It’s not for want of trying, but in my usual fashion, I became distracted by the Lotus Flower Coat. Now I’ve got that in the state where it’s awaiting assembly, I can return to my previous progress!
I am becoming aware that I have run out of “easy projects”. I need to start thinking about how I’m going to do the forest and the rocks, the stag, the man and his horse… At the moment, I’ve not the vaguest clue about that!
However, for Pooh-Bah the chow, I’m continuing as for the other animals I’ve done, with layers and layers of entangled stitching. I’m having to stitch myself painfully back into the right mindset to see what I need to see in my source material and then to bring it alive in my stitches. In this case, I’m scrambling in a light underlayer where I want the lighter coat, and I’m hoping that the final layer, in the direction of growth, will then look like the deep, fluffy fur of the animal.
There’s quite a lot more cream in place. More around the neck, short small stitches on the foreleg, trying to work myself back into my technique. It’s coming, I think. The foamy tail is looking suitably tangled here, and I’ve now added in a few dark stitches, the eye, ear, and start of the nose.