Landscapes In Needlework, Part III

Landscape fresco in Pompeii (Wikimedia)

People have been painting on walls for a very long time. Cro-Magnons painted wonderful animals on cave walls. The Egyptians painted on the walls of their tombs. Other ancient civilizations produced paintings and mosaics featuring conquerors and their armies, gods and heroes and, from the Greeks, athletes. But any attempts at landscapes were just sketchy backdrops for the figures. We have to go back to doomed Pompeii and Herculaneum to see landscapes painted for their own sake around 2,000 years ago. Today, even more of these murals are being uncovered as new excavations and restorations are done there. The cities were destroyed in 79 AD (CE). Buried so long in the ashes of Vesuvius, these murals are remarkably well-preserved.

Tuscan landscape, not too different than it would have appeared in Roman times

Detail and color fade with distance

We will probably never know the names of the artists or whether they were Romans or Greeks or people brought in from some other part of the Empire. They painted villas, hills, groves, mountains, seashores, farms, bridges, people, domestic animals, gardens, vineyards, boats, temples, rock formations, even small wildlife realistically. They had mastered atmospheric perspective, making distant objects proportionately smaller than those in the foreground and slightly graying colors near the horizon. They used trompe l’oeil (“fool the eye”) so effectively that viewers must have reached out to touch features of the paintings, believing that they were real. The artists sought to portray the peaceful and pleasant life of people living close to, and caring for, the land. The free, fluid brushstrokes and delicate colors would not appear again in Western art until the time of the Impressionists — more than eighteen centuries later! This photograph shows how background features become smaller and grayer.

Mountain panorama, photo by J.J.

In the 11^th Century, landscape painting began to flourish in China. Painters studied rock formations, trees and grasses, flowering plants, birds and insects, and drew them expertly. They portrayed the changing of the seasons with great delicacy. Despite their attention to detail, however, their landscapes do not represent specific places. Instead they represented the artist’s spiritual journey to connect with Nature in a perpetual search for enlightenment. These “journey” paintings are meant to be experienced by the viewer moving from right to left across them. This is probably because many paintings were done on scrolls, which were held in the right hand (and sometimes re-rolled), while the left hand unrolled the scroll, revealing a small area at a time.

Rustic cabin, photo by J.D.

I really like the proportions of the Chinese paintings. I have never been thrilled with the Golden Mean, which dictates our conventional frame sizes of 5 in. x 7 in., 8 in. x 10 in., 9 in x 12 in., 11 in. x 14 in., and so on. Whether vertical or horizontal, their pictures are more than twice as high as they are wide, or more than twice as long as they are deep. That is one reason that I like to do wall hangings. The eye cannot take them in at a glance, and so is drawn to look at one section at a time as the gaze travels the length of the work. Spring Thaw, for example, (3/11/2018) is meant to be viewed as it was stitched, from bottom to top. Here is one of J.D.’s ‘painterly’ photographs with similar proportions and lines that draw the eye from bottom to top.

Watercolor sketch by Annake

This is a picture of one of my paintings that eventually became “translated” into a wall hanging. The picture was painted from memory some years after the experience, but I can still remember many of the sensations. We had pulled our van over to the side of the road, parking by a large cluster of yucca plants, to watch a spectacular sunset. The yucca flowers were glowing, reminding me why one of their names is “Candelas del Dios”. A storm was moving in swiftly from the northwest. Thunder rumbled. Lightning flashed. I remember the smell of the dust blowing in the wind. Still we lingered, watching the afterglow as the yuccas became dark silhouettes against it. Then the storm was upon us. I may have mentioned that I love storms; my companions, however, were not as fond. We closed the windows and fled before the storm.

Yucca Sunset, latch hook wall hanging by Annake

Later, I made a latch-hook wall hanging as a kind of abstraction of the painting. Both of them are also intended to be “read” from bottom to top, from earth to sky. J. D peeled and polished the branch that holds the hanging, and secured it with leather thongs.

Horses, photo by J.J.

For several centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, landscapes were primarily backdrops for religious themes. In the late 15^th Century, a well-known Flemish painter, Joachim Patinir, broke from this tradition. While his paintings bear the names of saints and martyrs (who do appear somewhere in the pictures), the viewer is much more likely to be impressed by the stunning landscapes which dominate the paintings. The artist used very high horizons and filled the foreground and middle ground, as well as the background, with an astonishing collection of landscape features. He included examples of human enterprise among the many natural features in his paintings. Human eyes could not have been able to distinguish in reality all the area included in a single canvas, no matter what their vantage point was.

Storm Reflections, photo by J.J.

By the 16^th Century, Spanish artists were moving away from strictly religious painting, embracing court paintings and portraits, and experimenting with still lifes and genre paintings. A man from the island of Crete went to Spain looking for a patron and found one in the city of Toledo. His name was Domenokos Theotokopoulos. Apparently that was too much of a mouthful for the Spanish people, who called him “El Greco” (“The Greek”). Although most of his paintings were religious scenes or portraits of church notables, he is probably best known for his View of Toledo, in which he captures the onset of a violent storm and the eerie light that sometimes precedes such a storm. Here is one of J.J.’s photos that has also captured that light. Notice how much darker the clouds are when reflected in the water.

Landscape with no sign of humans

Landscapes, with or without structures and/or figures, became an important new painting category in Northern Europe after the Reformation. While Flanders remained Catholic, Holland, Germany, and some other northern countries did not. Many of the Dutch painters turned to painting sunny interiors or elaborate still lifes, but others preferred to paint their local landscapes. German artists tended to emphasize, even romanticize, landscapes. Even the great Albrecht Durer, best known for his woodcuts and meticulous engravings, painted rather “dreamy” watercolors of the Alps, which he passed through on his way to and from studying in Italy. (The artist is rather special to J.D., who was born on Durer’s birthday.) Another German artist, Albrecht Altdorfer, achieved fame for his paintings of the Danube River Valley. He occasionally included buildings and people, but the landscape clearly dominated his paintings.

You may wonder why I have put so much emphasis on photos in this chapter. If you are at home with a new baby or toddlers; if you are a caretaker for a loved one; if you work from home; if your movement is limited by physical or financial conditions; if transportation is an issue or you live in a neighborhood where it is not safe to wander around, photos may be your best source for landscapes. In my long life, I have faced all of those situations. Some of them still apply to me. I have a large collection of sketches, my own and family photographs, art prints, etc., to draw upon for my work, but I still look for and collect drawings, logos, and pictures that attract my eye for some reason. If you are serious about doing needle art, I suggest that you start a collection of your own. Really look at everything you can see. Ask yourself questions like:”What colors can I see here?” and “What kind of stitches would it take to look like that texture?” As you learn — or invent — new stitches and stitch patterns, keep samples for future reference. A shoebox can hold a whole library of stitches.

Delicate Arch, unattributed photo from a calendar

Speaking of photos, I came across one in a calendar that really makes my point about how few places there are at Delicate Arch to sketch or photograph. This photographer stood a few feet to the right and a few feet closer to the drop-off in the right foreground than where I made sketches for the rug in Landscapes in Needlework, Part I. Unfortunately, no information was given about the photographer who took this beautiful winter sunset.

Train your eyes!

Photo Credits:
Roman fresco: Miguel Hermoso Cuesta, Fresco fontana piccola 05, CC BY-SA 4.0
Tuscan landscape, Mountain lake, Delicate Arch are all unattributed from calendars with no publisher or manufacturers information: if you see your work or that of someone you know, please contact us so that we can give credit where due.
All other photos, copyright Annake's Garden

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

Landscapes in Needlework: Part I

Mountain sunset photo by J.J.

I’m attracted to landscapes, both to look at and to create. I’m especially attracted to landscapes sculpted by wind and water, ice and fire. The kinds that don’t easily accommodate the priorities of humanity. The kinds of landscapes that change the people who choose to live in them — rather than the other way around. Mountains and deserts, canyons and seacoasts — enduring places. Sometimes my depictions are realistic, based on sketches and photographs of specific locations. Sometimes they are composites, based on the characteristics of a region, rather than a single location. Sometimes they are impressions, based on sensations and emotions as much as on memory. And sometimes my landscapes are completely imaginary. We are going to examine each of these kinds of landscape over the next chapters, as well as seascapes, skyscapes, and cityscapes. Let’s begin with a realistic landscape.

This is Delicate Arch, the iconic rock formation from Arches National Monument near Moab, Utah, just an easy day trip from where we live. The reason that this landmark is so readily recognizable is that there are limited viewpoints where a person can sit or stand safely and in relative comfort to view, sketch, or photograph the arch in its entirety. Most people visit the area in the summer, when the sun beats down like a hammer of brass. But, despite its high desert location, in late spring or early autumn it is possible to encounter an out-of-season snow shower. Few people visit it in winter, although this is changing because of creative advertising. Both the arch and its surroundings are spectacular in the snow. I chose to present it as a wintry scene with a winter storm in the background. I love the drama of stormy skies and like to incorporate them into my artwork. As for the viewer, you may consider the storm as approaching or moving away, whichever you prefer.

Detail of Delicate Arch rug

The ‘medium’ in which this work was created is cut acrylic rug yarn on jute rug canvas, and the technique is latch-hooking. The Impressionists, especially the pointillists, discovered that they got the most realistic colors by combining small amounts of color next to each other, rather than blended together. The pointillists did this with tiny dots of color. Latch-hooking is pure pointillism because each piece of rug yarn produces a “dot” on the canvas. This allowed me, for example, to indicate the many colors in the banded sandstone that makes up the arch.

To download, click here

I make a number of sketches and line drawings before I begin a project of this size. Here is one of the early line drawings I made to establish the proportions I wanted in the final design. It really emphasizes the collection of rock formations that make up the arch. Download it if you like and use it as the basis for a needlework landscape in your choice of “medium”.

The next picture is a composite landscape. The ridgeline is real. The saguaro cactuses and their companion plants are real. They are just more distant from each other than they appear here. In other words, there is no place where a person can stand and see this exact landscape. Nor would easterly sunlight cast these exact shadows on the rocks at sunrise. The ‘medium’ here is Persian wool yarn on #10 needlepoint canvas. The technique is tent stitch in both continental and basket-weave. Some of the colors are achieved by blending two or three shades of yarn in each stitch. Again, this is related to the technique the pointillists achieved with their dots of color.

"Sunrise on Saguaro" -  needlepoint landscape

To make a blended yarn, you need to begin with yarns that divide easily. Most common yarns have 3 or 4 strands (called plies) that separate fairly easily. These are called 3-ply and 4-ply yarns and include tapestry and crewel yarns, as well as the heavier knitting weights. Novelty yarns are not as easy to separate. You can usually determine whether a yarn will separate by examining the end of the yarn. You should be able to see the separate fibers, or plies. Spread them apart with your fingertips. If they spread apart easily, cut a length of the yarn. See if you can gently pull two strands free. Then separate the two strands from each other in the same way. You should now have either 3 or 4 individual strands of yarn.

Detail of needlepoint, showing blended yarns

Just because a yarn separates easily, however, doesn’t mean that it will be suitable for blending. Wrap the ends of a strand around your hands. Pull, twist, and tug it to make sure it doesn’t fray. If it doesn’t, it should be a good yarn for blending. Here is a close-up view of blended stitching.

The last project is a landscape that captures the essence of an area and a season without portraying a specific place. It is done in “quickpoint”. Quickpoint is a form of needlework that I recommend to several groups of people. First of all, to beginning needleworkers. It is easy to do and results are achieved quickly. Almost any kind of design can be adapted for the technique. A second group for whom quickpoint is appropriate is that of creative people who have limited time to do projects. The final group would be people who once enjoyed needlework, but who now find that their eyes and hands do not respond as well as they once did. I belong to that group myself. Please don’t give up an activity that you love. Find less physically demanding ways to work.

Cross-stitch on #5 rug canvas

Quickpoint is large and the canvas mesh is easy to see. The needles are large and have eyes that are easy to thread. The yarns are thick and cover the canvas quickly. Projects can be any size that is easy for you to hold. The “point” in “quickpoint” implies that it is only done in needlepoint. This is misleading. Although it is done on canvas, quickpoint is also lovely done in counted cross-stitch, as I have done here.

Traditional quickpoint canvas has 4.5 stitches to the inch. I don’t have a source for this canvas at the moment, so I can’t show it to you. I can, however, show you a larger-mesh canvas and a smaller-mesh canvas, both of which work well for quickpoint. The canvas with the larger squares is #3.75 latch-hook rug canvas. It can be worked in uncut rug yarn or any of the many thick craft or novelty yarns. The canvas with the smaller squares is #5 canvas, also a rug canvas, but one that requires a special hook.

#3.75 and #5 rug canvas

You can use two strands of knitting worsted or several strands of tapestry or crewel yarns on the canvas. For the best results, do not double any of the yarns; instead, cut multiple separate strands of the same length. Thread them through the eye of a rug needle or a chenille needle. Some of these materials can be hard to find. Good places to look for them if you cannot find them at yarn or needlework shops are: second-hand stores, thrift and charity shops, yard or garage sales.

When working on a large cross-stitch design like this one, I often make a detailed chart first. I prefer to do a full-color chart with a colored square for each cross-stitch. Since I was planning to make a wall hanging, I made a large outline drawing of my original sketch. I started by taping several pieces of quarter-inch graph paper together and trimming them to the same relative proportions as the sketch I had drawn. Beginning at the bottom of the paper, I drew in the outlines from my drawing. Using that as a framework, I colored the segments of my design with markers. The squares on the graph paper each represented a cross-stitch I intended to make on a square of canvas.

Annake working on the quickpoint landscape

I measured and cut the canvas so that I had as many squares to work on as there were squares on the graph paper — plus a small margin along both sides. I chose acrylic yarns that matched the colors of my chart as closely as possible. Beginning at the bottom row of the design, I made one cross stitch for each square on my paper pattern. The sizes of the squares of the graph paper are a little larger than the stitches on the canvas, but they are still close enough to be easy to work from. Here is a picture of me stitching on the canvas (below) while looking at my hand-drawn colored chart (above).

Detail showing range of colors used

The colors of the yarns are more vivid than the colors of the markers I used on the chart, but they are still in the same color range. The picture shows tall evergreen trees on both sides of a small mountain stream. Sky and clouds show above the stream, More distant trees mark the horizon. The snowbanks along the stream are beginning to thaw and water is pooling at the bottom of the picture. The darker blues, grays, greens and violets in the lower part of the scene emphasize the cold of lingering Winter, while the lighter blues of the sky and the warmer whites of the clouds offer a promise of Spring.

Cart with chart and quickpoint in progress

I “re-purposed” a small rolling cart from my kitchen to hold my chart above my canvas. The chart was rolled and taped to the top edge of the upper “basket” of the cart. The canvas was rolled on a piece of plastic pipe that rests on the second level, or “basket”, of the cart. The two bottom levels held my yarns. I secured the canvas to the plastic tube with masking tape so that I could work on one section at a time. I rolled up the canvas each time I stopped working on it in order to keep it clean. Here is a picture of the cart as it looked when in use.

The edges of the finished canvas were turned under and stitched down. The work was backed with a large piece of blue felt. Enough felt was extended at the top to make a pocket for a dowel. After the dowel was inserted in the pocket, two large wooden beads that had been painted to match the felt were glued to the ends of the dowel, which rests on two slender nails that do not show past the beads. The entire piece measures 31 inches long by 13 inches wide (79 cm long X 33 cm wide). Here's a picture of the finished work, I call it “Spring Thaw”.

Finished quickpoint landscape, "Spring Thaw"

One of the things I want you to notice about these pictures and the ones that will follow them is the position of the horizon, the place where the land (or sea) meets the sky. Study the ways in which those positions influence the composition of the pictures. Remember that we have demonstrated that all of our landscapes do not have to be real, horizontal, framed, or hung on walls.

*Some content in this post has been presented previously, in a different form.
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Painting with Yarn -- an Introduction to Latch Hooking

Original Design Latch Hooked Rug, "Delicate Arch in Winter"

There's almost always a rug in progress in my workshop. I prefer latch-hook rugs, although I've also done them in needlepoint, crochet, punch-needle and braiding. I've recently completed one of Delicate Arch, the iconic rock formation from Arches National Monument near Moab, Utah. The reason that this landmark is so readily recognizable is that there are such limited viewpoints where one can stand to sketch or photograph the arch in its entirety. Few people visit it in winter, but it and its surroundings are spectacular in the snow. I chose to present it as a winter scene with a winter storm in the background. I love the drama of stormy skies and like to incorporate them into my artwork. You may consider the storm as approaching or moving away, whichever you prefer.

I learned to latch-hook as a young girl. A friend had gotten a pillow kit for Christmas that we worked on together. It's a simple skill that, once learned, stays with you for a lifetime. As my friend and I learned, two people can easily work on the same project. If each person pays careful attention to the tension in the knots, no one will ever know where one person's work ends and another's begins. I soon bought kits for their yarn, substituting my own designs and adding to my color range by hand-cutting pieces of Aunt Lydia's or other brands of rug yarns sold in hanks or skeins. I have taught these techniques to a long list of people, ranging from elementary school children to retirees to a woman who was legally blind (but who could still distinguish colors).

My Latest Latch Hook Work-in-Progress, a Geometric Pattern

The Impressionists are among my favorite artists. Latch-hooking gives me a medium for doing Impressionistic pictures. The effects can even closely approach pointillism. My favorite subjects are flowers (see previous blogs), wildlife, and landscapes. I don't paint my rug canvases as I sometimes paint my needlepoint canvases. If the rug is to be geometric in design, I graph several complete motifs and work from that, repeating whole or partial motifs as necessary. For realistic pictures, I outline large areas on the canvas with a permanent marker. Then I work “freehand” from my color sketches and J.D.'s photographs, blending my colors as I go. Most yarn today is acrylic (how I miss wool!), but I also use cotton, linen, and novelty yarns for special effects. These need to be cut to length by hand. I also use longer pre-cut rya yarn for texture. It can be hard to find and may need to be ordered from Canadian or European sources.

My Basic Latch Hooking Tools

I work on whatever flat surface is available. My most useful tool is a piece of two-by-four lumber with a row of “headless” nails down the center. The nails are spaced to fit into the square openings in the canvas. The wood has been sanded and painted and the bottom covered with felt to keep it from sliding or scratching the work surface. J.D. Made it for me several decades ago. It lifts the canvas off the work surface for easy insertion of the hook. After working a few rows, I lift the canvas off the nails and re-position it. An old muffin tin holds a dozen packs of yarn perfectly. Sharp shears for cutting canvas and yarn, a permanent marker, and a measuring stick complete my tool kit.

Beginner's Latch Hook, a Small Simple Owl Design

If you have never done any latch-hooking, I encourage you to give it a try. The easiest way to begin is with a small kit for a pillow or picture. If you enjoy that, I would recommend that you buy some canvas and yarn and start creating designs from charts (cross-stitch or needlepoint charts work well if you allow for the change of scale) or designing original works of your own. They are cheaper than kits! It doesn't take a large investment to begin. I start with a good jute canvas, preferably one which has always been rolled, not folded. The canvas runs $7 to $8 a yard in wide widths. If you watch catalogs like Herrschners or Mary Maxim or visit on-line stores such as Jo-Ann's, you can find pre-cut rug yarn on sale two or three times a year. The yarn comes in standard packs of 320 pieces per pack. Each piece makes one latch-hook knot. Standard rug canvas has 3.75 knot spaces per inch and requires a standard hook ($2). You can also use #5 canvas, sometimes called quickpoint canvas, but it requires a special hook with a smaller head ($3).

Try it. I hope you'll like it! Have fun --- always!

Annake

Desert Sunset, an Original Latch Hooked Wall Hanging

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