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It feels like most of this year for me revolved around my hysterectomy I haven't fell like myself for almost two years and functioning on low batteries for these last few months after being put on a waiting list in February really took a toll on me and it was all I could think about. Somehow I still found the energy to explore and experiment with my art and tried a few things. I started this piece pre-surgery. I wanted to create something that would include my love of paint, plants and thread. Like many, during Covid, I started to collect plants and being highly inspired by them. I want to share with you the journey of this piece the many changes it went through before becoming one of my favourite thing I created so far.
I hadn't use acrylic paint in a while, wanted to create something soft and realistic while remaining a tad abstract and painterly. That was the first step and I was please with the results. I always forget how much I enjoy working with paint and how easy it is to fix a mishap or change direction. My favourite category of plants being vines of all kinds, filling the background with philodendron was a given. At first, I painted philodendron Mican, they have a coppery undertone to their green leaves and it's simply stunning but I change my mind later on.
The first idea was to weave her shirt and embroidery some of the background details, I did it before for another painting and it had turned out great but instead of doing different directions I went one big piece and that was not working for me. It was tacky, it wasn't fitting the colours team, in an attempt to fix it the Mican became some sort of Pink Princess. At that point, I loved the colour but the weaving had to go. I slowly unstitched all of it adding paint in the back to feel the tiny hole left behind all along I was thinking of adding some embroidery to her shirt instead but once I was done removing the weave it as clear to me that a dark shirt was the way to go and the Pink Princess Philodendron was the element that needed my attention. Side note looking at your painting upside down really help finding what works or not in your composition, in this case the dark shirt create a negative space that helps the piece "breathing". It balances the busy upper part of it.
In the beginning, I was going to do 2 or 3 leaves and let the others a painted version but as I stitch patiently and completed one leaf I thought to myself, well this is great! So I did another one and thought maybe I could do incomplete embroidery on all of them probably as a way to make my life easier :) but I kept going leaf after leaf. Knowing myself it was a challenge not to just put it aside and work on something else and I committed to not begin another project before finishing this one.  I'm very proud to have kept that promise. This piece was a project of hope and new beginnings. My illness wasn't life-threatening but it has taken a toll on my quality of life and I am happy to put it behind me and focus on art, joy and everything that has been put on hold. Stitch by stitch I've healed my creative soul.  PS I need to take better pictures of her but today was cloudy and I was too excited to share her with you. :) I hope you can forgive me. She is available for adoption and will be added in the shop as soon as I can have proper pictures of her. She comes framed ready to hang and I will offer a lay away option since she's as bigger piece involves many hours of work and supplies.
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