Sample Development | Harriet Popham Inspired

Having done a fair bit of artist research, Harriet Popham is probably my favourite so far, and I really wanted to try out some of the techniques and styles that she uses in her work and apply it to my own research of Birmingham.

I love the way she embroiders different buildings and architectural details from her surroundings using free machine embroidery and is able to create intricate interpretations but with a raw, imperfect edge and I wanted to try this out for myself.

I decided to apply this style to an image of the Mailbox I found - another of my favourite places in Birmingham city centre - and using free machine embroidery, I stitched out the outline of the building on to the image itself, with my base fabric underneath.

It was a time consuming process (perhaps just due to the image I was trying to recreate), but after finishing the embroidery and tearing away the paper to reveal the stitched image of the Mailbox underneath, I'm really happy with the result and the time spent creating it was worth it. I'd love to add this technique to whatever final outcome I create, but I think it would look even better with a mixture of colours and perhaps embroidered onto layered up fabrics to replicate the colours and textures of the subject being "drawn".