Bush Sentinelle Experiment 2

This is the first of the orange-based Sentinelle prints from Dijanne Cevaal. I began with the leaves, which again, I kept to a minimal gimp line held down with three strands of green silk.

The gum blossoms, as with the first panel, I worked in satin stitch and pistol stitch, using both silk and linen threads.  This time I worked from bright red at the top of the dress to  orangey-gold at the bottom.

I used variegated silk around the cuffs and shades of grey on the koala.

To manage the necessary join in the metre of fabric I used a zip at the top, rather than an overlapping envelope closure

and this time I fussy-cut around the leaves in her head-piece, removing entirely the ring of the halo.

My idea was to embroider the leaves, extending them out into the fabric, to create a sun goddess effect. I began with gold at the shoulder level, moving into oranges, then reds, intending to reach the deep red of the blossoms in the fabric in the top centre. It didn't work. 

The result was more like horns than the sun. While historically, horns were often a goddess symbol, they were not what I was looking for here, so i removed the lines that were red-blue and replaced them with colours in the red-gold range.

Much better.

I used gold thread ( silk and linen) in satin stitch for the dots (gems) around her head and added some bordering stitches to almost eliminate the black print.

I was pretty pleased with the result, but felt that the contrast between the two sides of her clothing was too stark. I had begun with the intention to embroider only the unprinted sections. 

I modified this approach and added seed stitches to the dark side of the cloak.

It achieves the impact I was looking for, blending the figure into the background, with a sense of dimension and power.

I knew when I chose this fabric, that it would be effective. It exceeded my expectation. I've learned a great deal about colour in working it. The look of the fabric changes with the imposition of each colour. I now want to see the impact of working it with red, rather than gold, predominating. It occurred to me I could work the remaining orange Sentinelle on the back of this cushion cover instead of on the more traditional banksia fabric I had chosen for it. Katherine however, pointed out how good it would look to have two cushions either end of a sofa worked to show the contrast, so I have ordered another 1.25 metres of the fabric.  That will be Experiment 4.