Art Challenge

My friends and I did a bite-sized art challenge where we drew a flower, tree, building, desert, and self-portrait.

I'm not great at drawing, so my responses were rough sketches. I'm most proud of my flower entry, where after some mucking around, figured I always wanted a lily of the valley emoji, and got to designing it in the Microsoft 11 style.

I tried to stick to the geometric rules as much as I could - straight lines, diagonals at 45 degrees, circles. I think I broke some rule for sure with the second flower's stem placement on the main stem. And I could've had a better minimalistic palette by using the same dark green for the entire stem and finding a duo tone for the flower itself, but that's where the returns start to diminish, and I'm satisfied with what I sketched up.

Stage Skeleton Rough draft Outlined
Design

Embroidery

I literally just started and I'm unsure if getting 2 packs of thread instead of 1 was entirely justified. But it was $5 each so it's like fine. Also I keep accidentally stabbing myself a little with the needle, but they're apparantly made blunted enough to not draw blood.

I'll follow this channel until I feel like I know enough to do my own thing. The woman who runs this channel has really nice step-by-step instructions. Love her.

Stage Stem Leaves Flowers! Leaves More flowers
Date July 26, 2023 July 27, 2023 Aug 1, 2023 Aug 9, 2023 Nov 20, 2023
Progress

It took me so long, I spent like 2 hours on just this. Hopefully I pick up speed as I get better.

I need to not pull the thread so hard, so it has space to take up to be plush. Also trying to not be so frugal with thread, like it's just 2 inches, relax.

French knots are surprisingly tricky, especially when there's not much thread left to work with. You can see the difference and improvement between the top and bottom flowers.

Part 2 - I grimaced at the out-of-place branching leaf only after I tied the finishing knot. But it's ok. Worst case I'll rip it out later. I'm excited that only the flowers are left!

After 2 months of avoiding eye contact with my embroidery hoop, I buckled up and finished it! I got a better grasp of French knots - I think before, I was way too thrifty with the thread and didn't give myself enough room to have the proper tension and room to make a good knot.