Behind The Seams: The Design Process
Hi There!
Here is a little inside lewk at the design decisions I make, my formal training and how I do what I do.
Enjoy!
xo,
Brooke
A Moment In Time
Photography is one of my favorite parts of the process and is often the first step. There is nothing that I love more than spending time wandering streets, admiring local wildflowers or watching wildlife outside.
I even sat in this body of water for half an hour to get this shot. Pelicans are such fascinating creatures and it was a joy to watch them react like dominos for each part of their way of being. Taking my own photographs is greatly instrumental in ensuring that my story telling comes from a unique vantage point and later depicts authenticity and originality in my work.
These Indian Paintbrush or Desert Paintbrush were sprinkled all over the mountainsides on a life-changing hiking trip to Banff, Alberta and Montana. I was drawn to their stunning red hues and fiery disposition.
So naturally, I needed to make them last forever through needlepoint! Even though the plants have staggered leaves, a little artistic licensing came into play.
Sketching It Out
I have never been one to keep a journal, but in many ways, my sketchbooks kind of take place of a traditional way of keeping memories. Doodles on the sides of papers, words that I love, colors of an exhilerating trip are all things that take up real estate in my sketchbooks. On the left, you will find four leaf clovers a former mentor of mine had picked and put on top of a cake she made for our family. I don’t know how, but she has a serious knack for just looking down at the ground and finding a handful of them. On the right is an itaglio print that i made etching nitric acid on a zinc plate. Intaglio may still be one of my favorite mediums and did wonders for developing my understanding of how to show depth using cross hatching. This rendering is of a self-portrait Rembrandt had made of himself. Beside him, are some notes from a metal casting class of how to perfectly melt sterling silver in a crucible. Sometimes when I feel uninspired, I reflect on these sketchbooks of old ideas or even see how various themes have remained constant over the years. Much of the work that I do today still rung true back in 2007!
Research is a really important part of the design process, especially when it comes to human subjects in order to make sure I really did it justice. Although I rarely create a detailed sketch before I paint a canvas, when it comes to the proportions of a face or color studies, I don’t mess around. After doing extensive reading on my subjects, I note a few attributes that should be evoked through the depiction of symbols. Aspects that are iconic, alluding to deeper messages.
For example, when Frida was injured in an unfathomably tragic accident, in several accounts, she was said to have been found covered in gold leaf dust from a fellow artistic passenger. An ethereal surface to a harrowing reality. This moment changed her life forever as well as her artistic practice. This gold motif, as a result, encapsulates the design.
In addition, Frida Kahlo deliberately enhanced her facial hair, a traditional technique that honored a specific sect of her Mexican culture and heritage. Although this unfortunately did not work in needlepoint for her upper lip hair, I wanted to make sure I nailed her eyebrows as I would hope she would have wanted them. I also really wanted to surround her by a natural element that she would have seen in her daily life. As a result, I decided to create a background in a beautiful shade of green with the inclusion of butterflies.
Sketchbooks are cherished remnants of various times of my life. I have a size-able stack of them starting out in high school- one even has detailed drawings surrounded by calculus equations from class. This page is turned to a sketch of one of my favorite musicians alongside a piece of hand printed paper I found in Venice, Italy in 2019. I can’t seem to let myself do anything with it that is permanent, so it just hilariously remains folded, unused in an old sketchbook…
Material Girl
Allowing the materials or shape of the object to take over is a really fun part of the process as well. When the bottom of my longboard had been scuffed up from years of use, I decided to give it a new paint job. Taking a step back and seeing the big picture is really helpful in making decisions in regard to form and function.
Materials and dimensions were definitely important when it came to the development of this owl design. Not only had I been in the market for a jewelry box when I heard about Planet Earth’s new-ish travel cases, I had been trying to find the perfect way to implement owls, one of my favorite animals into my collection. The beautiful blue of the leather informed the palette that I chose for this barn own and the size forced me to simplify the concept down to some simple patterns and a limited selection of colors. The owl acts as a symbolic reminder to rely on gathered wisdom each time I take off my jewelry or put it back on.
*The canvas would make a brilliant ornament for those who do not choose to go the jewelry route.
A Curated Aesthetic
My painting style carries a range of technique. Having worked with oil, acrylic, watercolor, vinyl, intaglio print making, drawing, and even textile design, my designing process is very dynamic. There are lots and lots and lots of layers, thin and thick. Typically a canvas will begin as a generic painted sketch. The composition and palette evolve through the development, changing as my surroundings change.
Everything from the playlist on the sound system to whatever I'm watching as I work, have a huge impact on the final product. For example if I had just been flipping through an interior design book regarding a style in Santa Fe, New Mexico while watching Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, there's most likely going to be a juxtaposition of themes from the two incorporated in the final product.
As a result, my paintings often feature different nods to various cultures and time periods cultivated to create a unique piece. While my personal aesthetic and life itself has evolved tremendously over the years, it remains constant that my work is most influenced by nature, travel and the desire to preserve biodiversity to its fullest.
Scene of The Crime
This was a typical scene while painting in our tiny apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The “studio” by day, living room by night had the best natural light and I often find myself missing the way the sun set through the Moroccan inspired, sheer window treatments.
Fresh Threads
There is nothing more inspiring than a stash of fresh skeins. Frequently, when I visit a needlepoint shop, I find myself standing in front of the thread walls pulling skeins of cards or colors that just speak to me. Not necessarily for any purpose other than I just really love the colors. They tend to accumulate in my stash or get stitched up for random projects. And then one day, I open up a bag of my forgotten skeins and an idea sparks. This photo, I took for the Living Coral series for Our Common Thread.
Taking Chances
I always start with color, well, most of the time anyway. Through those colors, an impression of an image appears and I work the puzzle pieces together both in my brain and on the page. The more abstract, the better.
More often than knot, hehe, the colors just jump out at me in groups that seemingly frequently “go together.” After stitching a variety of projects, it is not unusual to have a pile of colors that seem to work- especially because I find myself working within complementary color relationships. Editing is definitely a vital part of the process, but sometimes it is fun to leave it up to chance.
Treasured Tools
I go through brushes like crazy due to the rough nature of the weave. Each time I visit an art store, I always make a point to visit the brush aisle. As brushes weather, they serve a new purpose in my repertoire and show some colorful wear and tear. I have a hard time throwing out brushes, even if they are utterly useless and it may be fun some day to create a shadow box with these treasured tools.
Simply Serene
For this design, I simply wanted to create an elephant with its trunk turned up and to use this gorgeous shade of serene, jade green. I had a real moment with this palette and found it incredibly calming. In fact, I designed this shortly after returning from an April trip in Florida where I wore an outfit with exactly these colors. In July, I dropped it off at the finishers to be made into an ornament.
Perfectly Imperfect
To be honest, a design is never truly finished. There is only so much that I can gather from simply painting a canvas as there is much to be explored through the threads with such a wide variety available. While visiting Maddy and Jessie in their beautiful home in Brooklyn, I decided to switch up a few things and add extra texture and color to this canvas I designed for our last Our Common Thread challenge. I have yet to finish stitching this canvas, but sometimes it takes some fresh eyes to add an exciting twist.
A Welcome Departure
One of the most important parts of my process is taking time outside and drawing from life. In the midst of a crazy 95 hour work week, Mr. Ocean’s mother (a beloved art teacher at a local private school) invited me to join her on a plein air excursion. It was so good for my soul to sit outside among the wildflowers and give it the ol’ college try to depict what was in front of me. Better yet, it was so fun to see the diverse body of work that came from a group of strangers painting together behind a barn in rural Vermont. It was such a magical day, unplugged and doing what I love most. Painting en plein air was a welcome departure from my daily task of painting with a limited range of detail.
When I first started designing needlepoint in 2015, it was really fun to incorporate stitching into my paintings and explore different avenues in my work.