The Art of Embroidery Design

Vorwort
The bestselling author of Mystical Stitches teaches embroiderers of all levels how to create their own original designs with in-depth technique instruction combined with a rich, colorful range of inspirational examples, including historical examples from a range of cultures as well as contemporary stitch artists from around the world.

Autorentext
Christi Johnson is an embroidery and textile artist and the author of Mystical Stitches. Johnson studied Fashion Design at Otis College of Art and Design and honed her craft in the Los Angeles fashion industry for nearly a decade, designing limited-edition embroideries for boutique brands. Now residing in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, Johnson teaches workshops in natural dyeing and embroidery and develops kits and booklets for aspiring artists and DIY enthusiasts. Johnson's garments, booklets, kits, and embroidered artwork are sold in maker studios and boutiques nationwide. Find Christi Johnson online at mixedcolor.net, and tune in to her podcast, Stitch Wish, for more inspiration. 

Klappentext

From an acclaimed embroidery designer and bestselling author of Mystical Stitches, an accessible how-to guide full of original stitch designs that will inspire readers to pick up a needle and thread.

Written for all levels of stitchers, The Art of Embroidery Design teaches the value of establishing a creative practice, with hands-on sketching and stitching exercises to help anyone build confidence in their design skills. Author Christi Johnson provides a workshop experience for readers looking to start from scratch. She breaks the design process down into approachable steps, including:

-developing a vision
-choosing a color palette
-using variations in line weight to create dimensionality
-achieving a range of textural effects.

Dozens of colorful photos of the author's own work are accompanied by historical examples from artisans in Mexico, India, Peru, China, Nigeria, and more, as well as profiles of some of the most inventive contemporary embroidery artists–it's a complete workshop in a book.   

Inhalt

Introduction: An Invitation
Chapter 1: Setting Your Intention
Chapter 2: Finding Your Vision
Chapter 3: Designing Your Composition
Chapter 4: Expressing with Color
Chapter 5: Amplifying with Texture
Chapter 6: Putting it All Together
Stitch Index
Resources

INTRODUCTION: AN INVITATION
Growing up with an artistic tendency that was heavily nurtured, I once thought that my talents were a gift given to me by the divine, that I was special, that I had something unique. Throughout my experience studying art and design, and then through teaching various textile arts skills, I learned that creativity was in fact not especially given to me. Sure, some people are more naturally inclined towards the arts, but it seemed that even those who “couldn’t even draw a straight line” were able to discover a well of potential with enough focused practice. I found that some of the less artistic students I went to school with, who committed time and effort to developing the skill of creativity, proved to me that creativity is a skill, not a God-given talent.

This book is all about developing that skill. Through these pages, I invite you to experience these different elements of design through projects that encourage exploration of materials and concepts. My hope is through engaging with these projects, you’ll find your creative muscles strengthened and ready to be expressed. The interactive nature of this book brings you into the process of creation; through gentle guidance you’ll work to move through any creative calcification that may have built up over time.

CHAPTER ONE: INTENTION
The Intention section will share traditional embroidery designs from all over the world and all through the ages, from Slavik ritual cloths to Nigerian headdresses, from 2,000-year-old Peruvian ceremonial shawls to 19th century Iranian prayer cloths, and even outsider artists from the 20th century like Charlie Logan. Understanding the deep history of embroidery, outside of a purely Western lens, helps to enforce the message that creativity and art belongs to all of us.
• EXPERIMENT and EXPLORE: Take a look into the stitches of your own family lineage (or a chosen lineage if you don't necessarily connect with your blood ancestry). This may look like asking family elders, grandparents or parents, aunts and uncles, of their own memories of any embroidery within the family, or if any embroidered heirlooms have been passed down. This could also look like taking a deeper dive at a local library into the textile history of your ancestral and/or chosen lineage. What imagery stands out to you? Can you tell what kinds of stitches were used? What areas of the cloth were embellished?

CHAPTER TWO: VISION
This is all about the WHY behind your work. I find that approaching artwork with a desire to tell a story or manifest an intention gives us more motivation to see the piece through and gives us a light to return to when we get lost along the way. We’ll explore vintage embroideries and student work to see how “non-artists” can express themselves through stitches without complex drawing skills. This is also when we choose the imagery we’d like to incorporate. How do we move from a description or desire in words, to an image? Sometimes the image may come to us first--how convenient! Other times, we may have a little trouble connecting written words or loose thoughts to the visual realm. The exercises included in this section are meant to help bridge that gap. While Mystical Stitches touches on creating an intention for your work, this book serves as a guide to help you find that vision within yourself.
• EXPERIMENT and EXPLORE: prompts for quiet contemplation, writing suggestions like creating a personal mythology, and intuitively flipping through books, seeing where you land (aka bibliomancy, or using books as oracles).

CHAPTER THREE: COMPOSITION
This is where we explore choosing compositions in a way that supports your intention; for example, a radial composition might encourage a more holistic vision; a vertically arranged composition might encourage upward expansion, while a more horizontal composition reads as calming and soothing.
• EXPERIMENT and EXPLORE: Cut out solid colored / textured /shaded shapes from pages of magazines and arrange within a circle or square. Photograph your favorite compositions. Trace and cut up desired elements that you’d like to include in a design, arrange and rearrange at least 12 times, photographing each and choosing your favorite

CHAPTER FOUR: COLOR
The way color is received by the eye is deeply connected to feelings and emotions; we are naturally drawn to or repelled by certain colors based on how they make us feel. This section gives us a basic understanding of what color is made of (hue, value, saturation), describes which colors are traditionally associated with which emotions, and gives guidance for choosing color palettes for your piece that can help reflect the deeper meaning (while also delighting the eye in the process).
• EXPERIMENT and EXPLORE: color inside another color outline to see how the inner color reads differently, shading with unexpected combinations using the long and short stitch.

CHAPTER FIVE: TEXTURE
The nature of embroidery is in its highly textured surface; using just the basic Nine stitches, we can find highly chaotic exciting textures, gentle and soft soothing textures, and anything in between. Learn how your stitch choice can help emphasize the various elements of your design.
• EXPERIMENT and EXPLORE: using one stitch, play with different textures: solid space…