Still Life in Needlework, Part II

A simple needlepoint still life

First of all, let me say that I was delighted by the positive response to the first post in this series. I hope you will continue to be as enthusiastic about those that follow. Let's begin where we left off last time.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, still life painting lost its popularity until about the 16^th Century in Europe. The genre was probably most popular in Spain and Holland. The main art centers in Spain were Italian-influenced Seville and Madrid, site of the royal court. In Spain, the credit for renewed interest in still life usually goes to Juan Sanchez Cotan, who painted very realistic fruits and vegetables hung from strings against a jet-black background. Like many painters who followed him, he painted so realistically that people reached out to touch the objects in his paintings, believing that they were real — a style we now call trompe l'oeil, meaning “fool the eye”. The greatest artist of the period, Velasquez, painted tables of delicious-looking food. Even Goya and El Greco did studies in still life. Most followed the use of the black or very dark backgrounds, which can be dramatic.

Needlepoint, "Love is Like a Red, Red Rose"

If you are working on any kind of needlepoint or tapestry canvas, black backgrounds are easy to make. You simply do all the design of your picture, no matter what the subject, and then fill in the background with a simple tent stitch in black that doesn't draw the eye away from your central design. You can see the effect in the geometric bargello design below. Working on dark or black cloth is more difficult — a problem we will take up later.

Four-way bargello, "Hearts Afire," with black tent stitch background

Today I am going to take you step-by-step through a simple still life composition. The background is #7 plastic canvas. I chose this because the work will show up well in photographs. Also, the materials are inexpensive — something to consider until you are sure that you want to make one of these projects. The yarns are acrylic leftovers from some of my knitting and crochet projects. (If you do the design on needlepoint canvas, monk's cloth, or Aida, the detail will be finer, the stitches smaller, and the curves more rounded. You will need to use finer yarns or flosses.) The needle is a blunt tapestry needle with an eye large enough to accommodate the largest yarn. I used continental (tent) stitch throughout because it is the simplest stitch that we will use for these activities.

 

Prepared canvas for needlepoint still life

 I found the center point of the canvas and drew the vertical and horizontal center lines through it lightly in permanent marker (red lines). I marked those same centering lines on my design sketch. Finally, I traced my pattern onto the canvas with a permanent marker and removed any excess ink with a tissue. Now I am ready to begin stitching.

Step 1

  

STEP 1: I outlined the shapes of each of the fruits with one or more rows of stitches in the defining colors. Features that did not require much modeling — like stems and leaves — were filled in completely.

Step 2

STEP 2: The shapes were filled in completely with continental stitch. Additional colors were used where they were needed.

(I'm sorry that I can't show you my “live models”. I should have had J.D. photograph them. I get hungry when I work, so as soon as I completed one of the kinds of fruit, I ate the fruit. By the time I finished Step 2, I was left with a few leaves and a tangle of grape stems! Not a very interesting picture!

But J.D. has become very interested in the still life project. He has been collecting interesting objects and photographing them from different angles, in different lighting conditions, etc. We will share some of those with you in a future post. Here's a sample of his work:

Photo still life, "No Rhinestones"

Step 3

STEP 3: The tablecloth that the fruits are arranged on is worked and a shadow of the banana is suggested with straight horizontal lines. Shadows of colored objects always contain a hint of the object's complementary color. The yellow banana's complementary color is violet, so a violet-toned yarn was used for its shadow. The leaves also cast shadows, but they are much thinner than the solid banana and move with the slightest breeze, so their shadows are less well-defined. They are indicated here where the blue stitches are over-stitched with one strand of dark red (green's complement) yarn. Knowing and applying these simple facts will make your embroidered compositions more lively and realistic. The other complementary colors are: red/green, red-orange/blue-green, orange/blue, yellow-orange/blue-violet, yellow-green/red-violet.

Finished needlepoint still life

STEP 4: The remainder of the background is completed. I visualized an old plaster or stucco wall behind the arrangement. To get that effect, I chose a color of yarn that was halfway between a dark ecru and an antique gold.

To download, click here

This simple pattern is very versatile. With very small changes in the lines of the original design, you can make extensive changes in the finished picture. Here are some examples to consider:

• Remove the center curve and change the peach to an apple;
• Do a red apple with green grapes or do a green apple with red grapes;
• Make the pear yellow, red, or light brown;
• Add more leaves or omit the ones that are there;
• Change the banana to an ear of corn or a crookneck squash, the peach to a tomato, the pear to an avocado or an eggplant;
• Replace the grapes with a head of cauliflower, leafy green lettuce, or blue kale;
• Use a variegated yarn for the tablecloth, make it striped, or give it more texture with a patterned stitch like Hungarian or Parisian;
• Use a light color for the tablecloth, but work the upper background in solid black like the Spanish artists did.

I'm sure you can think of other variations.

Not all still lifes are made in color. Think of all the black-and-white media for making pictures: pencil, charcoal, gray-toned pastels, pen and ink, block prints, etc. Here is J.D.'s photograph as a pencil drawing (left) or a mixed charcoal and pastel rendering (right).

Black and white variations of "No Rhinestones"

When we return with Part III of this series, I will introduce you to a design on fabric with floss that is done in a black-and-white technique called Spanish blackwork. If you are not familiar with blackwork, I recommend that you read some of my early posts that described the technique — particularly those of October 6, 2013 and January 27, 2014. Use our search engine to find these posts.

Play with the pattern and combinations to find ones that you like. As always, have fun!

 This post by Annake's Garden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.