Rusty Truck Thread Painting

I have loved this truck picture for a long time and spent some months pondering how I would ‘paint’ it. Since I have a class in a few weeks on this very subject, I thought it was a good time to work on it.

Here is the original picture. It is not mine, I got it in a Google search (and the original owner could be the winner of a lovely piece if they email me.)

 

I loved the one headlight and the sad, plump fenders.

From that photo I made this:

Click for bigger picture.  (8” x 5”)

Note that this is not fixed or trimmed to size. I wanted to show that one can control the warping if one works smartly and in a number of directions. It does take some practice and lots of firm ironing as well.  :-)

Here is my setup when I work on piece like this. I like to have all my threads and a picture of the piece near my sewing machine for reference.

I JUST realized that I reversed the picture when I was making it! The broken headlight should be on the left. You know, I actually thought something was ‘off’, but I couldn’t figure it out. Well shoot! 

Anyways, I like to have all of the threads I will use right beside me. I am lucky in that I bought a huge set (300 colours) on Ebay for a very reasonable price. I am soooooo happy I did this. It is spun polyester thread with fuzz on it, and I love it for embroidery painting, but would never quilt with it. It is dull, so I like to use some shiny rayon or silk threads with it. None in this piece as you can see from my sample. This little thread holder (by June Taylor) was picked up at Michael’s at Christmas when I was in the big city, and it works perfectly for my needs.

 

I am glad this one is done and I am satisfied with it. It took about 6 or 7 hours in total to  complete, and that is about 4 hours more than I would normally take. I think I stopped and started a lot to get the design right in my head.

 

But its back to my first love, landscapes now that I have this itch out of the way.   :-)