"Koi and Sewing Thread"

Diptych- word comes into my mind here. Yes, I created a second piece to go along with my previous goldfish piece (below).

I don't think I ever explained this: all of my hand embroidered on the paper pastels, use machine sewing threads. I don't use traditional hand embroider threads, right now, because they are much thicker. I want the focal point to remain the focus, and sewing machine threads are thin enough to remain more of a visual support and then using something thicker and fear of the embroidery becoming distracting.

Looking back, I have more goldfish drawing/paintings then originally thought...hmmm... 

Okay, the history is that as a kid I got two young koi fish* as pets. My father used to buy these baby shrimps, and made a special spoon so I can feed them on top of their fish flake food. But waking up at 6am everyday before getting ready for school proved to be too much for me. Plus, I was too young to have the responsibility and commitment to grow my koi fishes. So eventually, they ended up in fish heaven :0(

I still admire them and we have relatives that have actual koi ponds in their backyard, where they can grow big. I don't have the space nor do I have a backyard, so I'll just admire them from a distance.

*plural fish or fish·es

"Kingyo and Sewing Thread

Aaaa.... another fish piece! I decided to draw goldfish again, beause I actually had a creative block. UGH! So this time, I wanted to embroider again to make these fishes different. This piece using the kanji in the middle of the subject(s) says, "kingyo", which is Japanese for goldfish. 

Yes! I was hesitant to stab through the middle of these fishes so I can embroider the kanji, but I had threw a tissue paper with this kingyo character outlined beforehand and thought, that this would be a cool and different approach. I still admire the look of paper embroidery with a drawing. For me, I approach embroidery as linear imagery which is a great balance when it is against a solid subjecct matter....that's my take on it at least. It goes back to my love of typography graphic design.

Jack O'Neill's House

"Jack's House"

'Tis the title of this drawing. Watercolour and pastels. The founder of the O'Neill wetsuit and lines of surf-life style clothing lives close to us....so I just had to draw out his house. Unfort...you can't see the front of the house unless you are out in the ocean waters. So don't know if I'll ever see what the rest of his house looks like. (sad) 

Ugly Pink House

This un-attrached pink house...an ugly incident happened last summer and so I felt like drawing this out and giving it a negative title. >< 

But of course, I had to do the title in Japanese. 

It says," mini-ku-i pink no- iie".

translation: ugly pink house

Done with watercolor background and pastels on PastelMat paper.

"Jellyfish Dream"- Pastel with mixed media

Whew! I finally got this done. Sorry the photo is terrible. I forgot to take a pic before I had it sent to the framers. So this is taken with reflective glass... ugh! oh well. Jellyfish is in pastel on ArtSpectrum paper. The background is acrylic, and the embroidery is with white sewing machine threads. I'm starting to really like this method, although a bit time consuming then just drawing images straight on the paper. I guess I'm currently tapping into my old-fashion self, where I like to use threads. From the fact that I can hand and machine sew, knit and crochet...just like back the in days before computers (GAAAASSSSP!) This piece will be shown at the Santa Cruz Art League's "Small Wonders II" Show- Dec. 15th through Jan. 6th. This should be a fun experience for me. Great opportunity at the Art League to showcase work.

Yellow Seahorse- done!

Whew! I am actually proud of this piece. But it took a while. I had ruined about 4 pieces of pricey paper to get to a point where I can use the background and actually draw on top of it. I used the Golden Acrylic Grounds for Pastel and acrylic paint. Once I finished the drawing of this seahorse, I then proceeded to use blue sewing machine thread and embroider these organic circular like shapes around the seahorse. I was lucky to use the heavy 140 pound cold press Arches Watercolor paper for this piece because I had to handle this paper alot, and it was thick enough to where I couldn't crease or put fold marks into this while I was threading. I will do a similar style like this for my next piece, that I hope to show in the "Small Wonders" Show at our local Santa Cruz Art League.