Tag Archives: Suzanne Forbes

Playing with pastels, drawing loved ones.

Leave a reply

l in berlin by Suzanne Forbes Aug 1 2017When you live in Berlin, everyone comes to visit!

Many Patrons will know the beautiful face of this loved one, visiting Berlin for a week or two. L. and I got to spend some sweet quality time visiting in my Berlin kitchen while I took it slow making this drawing.

As I continue to experiment with pastels, they become more integrated into the drawing as a whole. I really considered their usage and merits for the first time as I worked on this, trying to actually work with the medium a little. As opposed to riding roughshod over it and entirely imposing my comic-book aesthetic and technique, the way I usually do.

Maybe someday I’ll even make a traditional style, true pastel painting, with no ink at all!

Like I used to do at the Art Students League as a ten-year-old.

But that day is not today, as you can see from this drawing of the hubbin sleepin. I was so fired up from drawing L. that later that night I snuck in and drew my husband in the dim light of our bedroom. Hub is so used to me sneakin in and drawing him, he just opened his eyes, shrugged, and went back to sleep, being careful not to change his pose!D sleeping August 1 2017 by Suzanne Forbes

July bricolage – glitch collage embroidered moto jacket!

1 Reply

Collage embroidered floral motorcycle jacket created by Suzanne ForbesI didn’t do much bricolage or embroidery this month, as I was super busy with life drawing and a new painting.

Collage embroidered floral motorcycle jacket created by Suzanne ForbesI did however drop a bunch of hours into this one project. I had been seeing these embroidered motorcycle jackets at mainstream stores, inspired by last Fall’s fashion shows.

I found one for under forty euros (in case the whole idea went badly) and ordered a bunch of commercial appliques from eBay.

Then I researched the process of sewing on appliques, learned about invisible thread, and ordered some of that from Amazon.

All of this took months of course, so it was summer by the time I finally started sewing. And the sewing on of the appliques itself took a solid thirty hours.

I just laid out the jacket, which had some embroidery on the sleeves and a little bit on the front, and started collaging appliques onto it.

Collage embroidered floral motorcycle jacket created by Suzanne ForbesI cut them up, moved them around, and tacked them down with pins.

Then I sewed them on, very carefully and slowly. It was relaxing actually. Except, to my surprise not all the collage designs worked once sewn on. Sometimes the applique was too thick and deformed or distorted the thin PU fabric, and in some places it just didn’t look cool.

Collage embroidered floral motorcycle jacket created by Suzanne ForbesSo sometimes I had to use my handy stitch picker and cut off a section I had laboriously attached.

Because it didn’t look right! On the bottom right of the back I had to try three different applique pieces to end the pattern in a way I was satisfied with. I love how it came out, though, and that mine is completely unique.

This is a project anybody could do. The only specialty skills I brought to it were a tiny bit of embroidering here and there to unify pieces and my personal aesthetic. I used colored Sharpies to tone down brights and unify colors in the applique pieces as needed. Objects we own aren’t permanent, and we get to fuck with them like we want to!