One of my pieces (if successful) is going to be the interpretation of the photo (with her kind permission) that my friend took when she visited Halong Bay in Hanoi. She talked about it in her blog travelswithrarecat.
I use white Dupioni silk as the ground. One thing I found out regarding painting on Dupioni silk is that I have to pre-wash the silk, and very carefully. For my first unsuccessful attempt, I squeezed it dry after washing with synthrapol. The fabric got badly creased and no amount of re-wetting or ironing was capable of removing the wrinkles. There was also significant shrinkage after washing. So I had to wash it VERY gingerly.
I painted the sky with a light magenta wash, and an even lighter wash was painted on part of the water. The hills were painted with magenta shaded with black. The focal hill was stitched with 3 shades of Appleton wool. I hand dyed white silk gauze with shaded magenta and stitched the gauze on the mid-ground hills.
I had to experiment to find out how to do the water. I found the solution in Suzhou embroidery, from the books Threads of Light, and Chinese Embroidery. It is called random stitch embroidery by the former, and free cross stitch by the latter. So far I have 3 shades of magenta/mauve for the water.
For the companion piece, which has to be identical except for the color scheme, I'm thinking of doing it in black and white, and then stitching the raft in a brilliant red(?) color. I will contemplate on it as I work on finishing the current piece.
