Cyanotype weave and hand embroidery

Entanglement: Transformation 43716-1, copyright 2023/2024 Douglas Stockdale –

Sometimes, one thing leads to another. Maybe the endless story of creative journeys, eh?

The first time I created a print weave from my Entanglement series, I did not know where this might lead to. I will have to admit, the first time I did the hand embroidery on a print, it was an attempt to really push my limits. Being a bit old school, when I was working in the wet darkroom making a ‘final’ print, that was the end of the artistic journey for that given negative. A wonderful pristine silver gelatin print.

Then a fifteen year break from photography, first tight watercolor compositions and eventually I evolved into creating loose acrylic painted semi-abstractions. When I rebounded back to photographs, it seemed like I restarted my photographic journey where I had left off; straight photographs. While some artistic changes were still lurking in the background. Long story a bit shorter; still hard for me to mess around with a photographic print. So the hand embroidery of a cyanotype print was pushing my own limits (usually the case, eh?).

Then to make a mosaic weave print; to actually slice and dice two cyanotype prints. Wow. Okay, once I made that transition (and I did not die), I started to realize more visual options and work on refining my process. Nevertheless, it is still hard to pre-visualize what the final print weave will look like so each one is exciting to watch as the weave continues to evolve until I am done.

So now I moved on to the next step; selectively weaving a print and then subsequently hand embroidering it. The evolution of combining these two methods. Done!

My current goal is to create at least ten of these weave prints from this series by mid-June for another Critical Mass submission. Probably not all of these prints will include the hand embroidery. And I just keep pushing this creative envelope and I am not sure where it will take me, while I am enjoying the ride.

Make every day an Earth Day

Doug

Artist book available:

 The Flow of Light Brushes the Shadow, an artist book from Singular Images Press, 2022, $60.00 (CA sales tax for those residing in the USA) plus shipping expenses. Message me douglas.stockdale.artist@gmail.com