Irene Schlesinger

Pressing On

Hey hey hey!

Happy Tuesday, that is I think it might be Tuesday but anyhoo, hope everyone is ready to creep into April.

I thought about calling these blogs as “projects“ or ‘tutorials’ but that’s not exactly right. The projects in my book are very detailed ad 💯 tried and true…The things I’m tossing out may be better described as ‘inspirations’ because that’s really what I want to do here- show and tell. Work on these or take an idea and run.

I am working on little stretched canvases that are 8 inch squares. I left off showing the pretty marbled papers I had ordered.

I will be using that paper heart – (yes, another heart thing)
Some craft glue, gold acrylic paint and a smear of the acrylic medium ‘Gold Mica flake’.

You may notice from the photo above, that I pre poked the canvas with a needle. I didn’t need to make sooo many holes but only should do a few along the stretched support. I do that to show me where the support is so I know how far from the edge of the canvas I can stitch.

I’m using just a few swipes of this, but not until everything else is done. The last step. It’s a mineral that appears gold and glitters. It’s mixed in polymer so, it stays where you put it.

I have too many ideas. This is a very simple one that I knew would go by fast. I painted the whole canvas gold. After drying, I generously applied craft glue about 1/4 of an inch from the cut area of the back of the heart.

Glue is back from the edge of heart. When I attach it to the center of the canvas, I take my time, pressing and smoothing the heart down. I think this removes any air pockets and keeps this paper from warping.

After attaching the heart, I used a needle and poked holes going down into the paper.

Poking holes where my stitches will go. Doing it before I start.
The red on the marbleized paper was tough to match.

I found a ball of a reddish color to match the red in the paper from that huge bag of the 90 balls of thread. The fastest way to add stitching to this was going into each of those poked holes and putting in a French knot. I think any stitch could work, but consider the paper you’re using . This paper used here is very much like children’s construction paper- very soft. It will mush if the needle goes in and out too much. A harder paper will likely rip and tear if the stitch is a fussy one.

Here ya go🤓.
French knots and some love.

I added some love around the heart. At last, I got to do a few swipes of gold mica- I just used my finger- and paper towel afterwards so gunk won’t go in the sink and clog everything)

And just like that, I have another heart piece to send (fits perfect in priority mailing box 📦).

I have a few works in progress going on these small canvases. I’ll show and tell as we go on.

Thanks for checking out my blog.

My daughter showing one of the masks I made for her dept.
Be careful out there!

Published by Irene Schlesinger

Hey There! My book "Artful Embroidery On Canvas!", was published in 2020. Thanks for checking out my blog! It's a mix of projects, reports on creativity and whatever else I may have to say. I'm a San Francisco Bay Area-based mixed medium artist who is especially interested in embroidery, installations and all that’ll art for art’s sake! UPDATE: My embroidery has been on hiatus since February 2023 which was when my husband started to feel ill. Sadly, he passed in March 2023 and so, the blog veered into a more personal direction. I'm ending my art hiatus later this September. Life has become a bit complicated but I will be back to blogging more on art and still describing my daily life as an artist, a woman, a mother, a daughter and struggling widow. Thanks for reading along.

Categories Artful embroidery, Inspirations, Season of What Now projects, stitching with acrylic mediums
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