Views of Chisinau

I finished two views of Chisinau, and I want to share them with you! For frame of reference, these are about 3 inches in diameter, so they're pretty small!

On the left is a view of one of Chisinau's classic kelly green park benches with a matching trashcan, and a bust of a poet. There is a whole row of these busts in the park, and it is one of our family's favorite spots.

On the right is a sunset silhouette of Stefan cel Mare, a Moldovan 16th-century hero. His statue is on the corner of the park, and it's always a lovely place to walk past.

Here's the reference photo I used for the Stefan cel Mare piece:

And the finished product (click to see it in greater detail):

Here's the photo of the park bench (right after a calamitous spring storm, which is why there are so many piles of branches waiting to be cleaned up. I chose to leave those out of my final piece):

The colors in the photo didn't end up very true to life, so I tried to correct that in my final piece (again, click to see it bigger):

I've never done anything like these pieces before--I usually go for a much more stripped down style, with lots more empty space and a sketch aesthetic. But for these I tried something new, using different textures and stitches to create a more fleshed out look. It took forever, but it was a fun new challenge and I'm very pleased with how it turned out. 

For instance, I used french knots to make the brick path around the bench, which was very time intensive but I think turned out beautifully:

The trees in the background were challenging. I needed them to look sort of impressionist and fade nicely into the background. This meant selecting a lot of medium intensity greens and browns and trying to use only as much detail as seemed necessary. 

There are a few more photos I have that I'm thinking of turning into embroidered pieces, but they will have to wait until after we arrive in New Haven. I'm excited to try this technique again!