Light Project

(Bottom Right Landscape Painting)

Throughout my light project I have looked at different mediums, and ways of working light into my artistic practice. For a while I was drawn into painting and using light as my main inspiration but I then wanted to explore different textures, by using thread and felt. I really liked the final outcome from my light project because I have created a physical map of the moon, I used the light areas as my base guide, stitched the craters, and then lit up the final piece with different lights.

Lunar Map Photographs

I wanted to experiment with different colours and textures of light play, I used the camera lenses over the top of my phone camera and then put in my phone flashlight. I really like the images with light spots over the top of the image it gives a very vintage photograph feel, like the images taken of the moon on the Apollo missions.

I really like the images with brighter colour balance because it highlights the stitch work in the background, and links into the light theme I was going for.

Camera Lenses

To edit my moon piece I decided to use natural light, bright light from a camera flash, and a couple of different camera lenses. I want to edit my pictures with as much natural light as possible.

Lenses:

• SEPIA
• WARMTONE U.V
• SKYLIGHT 1-A
• FL-W
• Y (K2)

Lunar Map and the Moth

Moth Experimentation

To extend the idea of light I have been working with moths, how they are drawn to light and how they have been known to follow the light of the moon despite no reasoning behind it. I wanted to create a story behind the piece that made the viewer think about the subject and creation. I started by researching images of moths that i could translate into my own project. I chose a simply base line of a moth and traced it onto the same fabric i had used for the background so when put together it begins to meld together. I stitched each part on its own then stitched them together piece by piece almost like the original idea of creation. I embroidered patterns into the moth to echo the patterns you see both on moths in the wild and the patterns i had used within my lunar maps to show that everything has an influence on everything else in this world. I used the same muted greys as the moon but i also used greens to create an idea of a link with earth and nature compared to the more dry and dusty colours created by the moon surface. With moths now created, i could follow up this idea by hanging them in front of my lunar maps to echo the idea of them flying towards it and being drawn by its light.

I first cut out all the pieces

I first started sewing the bottom wings with a gray/yellow thread

Lunar Map – Top Panel

Without flash

With flash

Lunar map- Bottom Panel

Lunar Map- Process

For the top panel I decided to use the same back stitch technique but instead of using pure circle patterns I used a couple of lines to detail in scars on the surface from impacts. The top of the piece has more structure in the shape because on the reference photograph I was working from there are more impact sites, so around the outside I have created half circles to detail the moons edge.

Examples of the straight lines as I was sewing them

Close up of the straight stitch

Some small circles

Lunar map – Process

To finish my lunar map I decided not to stitch a ring around the outside of the moon because I really liked the free flowing, weightless feeling of the stitch. The outside facing stitches are left open to give the feeling of a border without having to stitch around the outside.

Section of the outside stitch

On this piece I have used white and brown thread for highlights and lowlights, I think the mix of threads gives a detailed pattern shape of the moon and the creators in its surface I have used the same back stitch across the whole piece and I think it had turned out just as I had planned.

Close up photograph of the outside edge

Lunar Maps- Process

For the first section of my process I have been working on the bottom panel of the lunar map. For this section I have been looking at a map of the dark side of the moon, I think this works well for a play on light because even though we can not see this side of the moon we know that there is light, if only a little, on this side.

I have been at first using an off white colour but then I have started to use a muted brown colour to add depth and tone. I think this works really well because it makes the pice stand out even more against the black felt.

Start of the back stitch, camera flash on

Start of the back stitch, no flash on

After about 40minutes of work, flash on

The same section after 40minutes, no flash on

Using the last of the white thread, camera flash on

Using the last of the white thread, no flash on

Starting to add in some of the brown detail