leaves

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Craft

Fiber-Based Wall Hangings Blend Weaving, Macramé, and Crochet into Striking Bouquets

Opting for yarn and rovings of raw wool dyed in natural pigments, Korean-American artist Alyssa Ki crafts fiber-based wall hangings reminiscent of bouquets and overgrown patches of wildflowers. The perpetually blooming pieces blend multiple textile techniques and are teeming with macramé, needle-felted, and crocheted botanicals that sprout from a thick, woven foundation. Hanging from a knotty branch or bound by a ribbon, the floral works are ripe with color and texture.

Currently based in New York, Ki has a background in photojournalism and first started working with fiber in 2018. She’s since crafted innumerable flowers, leaves, and fibrous vines for a variety of commissions, and you can dive into her process on Instagram. (via The Jealous Curator)

 

Art Craft

Circular Masses of Coral and Leaves Form Sculptural Embroideries by Meredith Woolnough

From swirls of eucalyptus leaves to perfectly round bodies of coral, the sculptural pieces by Newcastle-based artist Meredith Woolnough (previously) depict a range of textured, organic shapes. Each elaborately crafted work is drawn through free-motion embroidery, which involves using the most basic stitches on a sewing machine and moving a swath of water-soluble material around the needle. Once the form is complete, Woolnough dissolves the fabric base to expose the delicate, mesh-like structure, a process filmmaker Flore Vallery-Radot follows in the studio visit above.

The resulting works either stand alone as sprawling clusters of veins and branches or are strung into larger displays, like the “carpet of embroidery” Woolnough is working on currently that involves more than 1,000 small pieces threaded together. No matter the size, each piece contrasts thick lines with fine, sparse patches to give the leaves or rocky formations shape, and the artist describes the balance between the two methods:

Often when I depict solid subject matter, like coral which is often quite hard, I will stitch my design with dense areas of stitching. I like to put lots of small overlapping stitches very close together to form a solid structure where you can’t clearly see the individual stitches. This dense structure is needed to help the final embroidery hold its shape once I remove the water-soluble base material I stitch onto. With this dense stitching, I can also achieve subtle colour blending as I change thread colours.

Alongside her practice, Woolnough teaches a variety of workshops and released a book back in 2018 titled Organic Embroidery that details her processes. Some of her smaller works will be included in a group exhibition at The Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, which opens online on October 16. You also can find her available pieces on her site and watch for updates on Instagram. (via The Kids Should See This)

 

Craft

Dried Floral Arrangements Sprout from Elaborate Tulle-Based Embroideries

Using simple white tulle as her base, Olga Prinku creates lush arrangements of flowers, seedpods, berries, and other organic materials teeming with color and texture. She fastens the preserved florals, which she often grows or forages and then dries herself, to the mesh webbing, encircling an embroidery hoop with elaborate patterns or depicting figurative renderings of birds and individual blooms. Many of the pieces replicate the motifs found in nature or those prevalent in eastern European folklore, which the North Yorkshire-based artist ties to her upbringing in the Republic of Moldova.

Formerly a graphic designer, Prinku says her creative process is similar in her now-tactile medium, relying on trial and error and an understanding of color, shape, and overall composition. “I learned in graphic design to be willing to experiment with different ideas that I wasn’t sure would work, and then to be willing to give up on the ones that aren’t working and refine the ones that seem promising,” she says, sharing that her typographic hoops directly connect both practices.

Prinku teaches workshops and offers tutorials for those interested in learning her botanical craft and is releasing a book titled Dried Flower Embroidery that will be published this October by Quadrille. Find more of her luxuriant embroideries on Instagram. (via Lustik)

 

Illustration Photography

Meticulous Digital Works Layer Petals, Leaves, and Natural Textures into Fantastic Creatures

Melbourne-based artist Josh Dykgraaf has a discerning eye for matching two seemingly disparate elements. In his ongoing Terraforms series, autumn leaves become feathers, magnolia petals wind into scales, and plumes form fins that swish through water. Each illustration merges flora and fauna into an entirely new fantastical creature, and a single piece can take days to complete, with the pair of Tawny Frogmouths, for example, clocking in at 55 hours and more than 3,000 layers.

“My process for how I pair natural textures with animals is usually a bit like cloud gazing—like as a kid, did you ever stare up out the clouds and make out different forms and shapes among them?” Dykgraaf says, noting that he takes all of his own photographs of the source materials on hikes or walks around his neighborhood. Once he returns to his studio, he painstakingly collages the extraordinary creatures, coating a closed beak in bark or an echidna in regrown brush following the East Gippsland fires.

In the coming months, Dykgraaf is shifting to a portrait series focused on Indigenous people around the world. His digital works will be included in The Other Art Fair in Sydney from March 18 to 21 and the virtual edition, which runs March 23 to 28. Until then, see a larger collection of the intricately constructed creatures on Behance and Instagram, and pick up a print from his shop. (via designboom)

 

Food Science

Dry Out: A Timelapse Chronicles Dozens of Leaves, Fruits, and Organisms As They Shrivel

“Dry Out” plunges into the minute details of the evaporation process through a dramatic series of timelapses. Shot with macro-lenses and microscopes, the grotesque short film by Christian Stangl reveals water droplets, leaves, and succulent fares, like berries and even whole fish, transforming into their gaseous counterparts during the course of days and weeks. Watch more of Stangl’s films that dive into the lengthy processes of the natural world on Vimeo, and check out stills of the process on Flickr.

 

Art Craft

Vibrant Botanic Embroideries Embellish the Dried Leaf Sculptures of Hillary Waters Fayle

Merging traditional craft techniques and the natural world’s abundant materials, Hillary Waters Fayle (previously) meticulously stitches brightly hued florals into found camellia leaves and other foliage. From simple lines and ribbing to fully rendered botanics, the thread-based embellishments interrupt the fragile matter. The resulting sculptures evidence nature’s durability while juxtaposing the organic material with the fabricated additions.

In the interview below, Waters Fayle describes how she gathers leaves and seed pods from areas around her home in Richmond, Virginia, and notes that her practice is rooted in sustainability. By using materials that are already available, like thread from her grandmother, the artist strives for zero-waste in her practice. Overall, her intention is to “bind nature and human touch,” magnifying how the two interact.

Head to Instagram to view a larger collection of her embroidered works. You also might enjoy Susanna Bauer’s crocheted leaves.