In today’s episode of Embroidery Illusion: Distorting the Senses, I’ll explore the fascinating worlds of trompe l’oeil, shading, dimension, shadow work, transparency and perspective as they are used in the art of embroidery.
Why? Because these are the techniques used to create those deceptive feats of trickery, working with a creative needle and thread and a great deal of imagination.
In this episode, I’ll explore historical illusions, key techniques used to create them, modern examples and even how you can start experimenting with the concept of illusion yourself.
Let’s delve into the properties of embroidery and how an object or image may differ from how it actually appears in our work. Someone’s playing with our senses, and it’s a lot of fun.
Before we step back into history, we need to understand what the term illusion means when it refers to art and embroidery.
It’s about creating a visual impression of something that’s not actually there, or making the work seem as part of the viewer’s real space, when it’s not.
Techniques involving perspective, depth, and light can trick the eye into seeing dimensions on a flat surface. Think of sidewalk art where clever artists work with chalk to create a scene that defies the laws of logic, something like a gaping hole. It’s all illusion.
But, from a distance, it looks so real.
Clever artists use optical illusion, illusion of space and depth, form, movement, and illusions of ambiguity and paradox.
Dynamism creates an illusion using various visual techniques. Elements like line, colour and composition can create the impression of movement and energy within a still or static artwork. The artwork’s not moving, but the artist can utilise techniques that trick the viewer’s eye into perceiving a sense of dynamism, capturing a feeling of movement.
Techniques such as Op Art and kinetic art create the illusion that makes the artwork appear to move or vibrate.
Diagonal lines, swirling patterns and other compositional devices can lead the viewer’s eye around the work, creating a sense of movement.
Abstract art may use swirling colours and shapes to convey energy, while figurative art might depict motion using a figure in dynamic poses and gestures.
The Futurist Movement used dynamism to depict the energy and movement of modern life in their art. They were primarily active between 1901-1914, so goodness knows how they’d interpret our modern-day life.
There’s also the work of M.C. Escher, who famously used illusion to create visually captivating and thought-provoking artworks by exploring the ideas of perspective, spatial relationships and the interplay of two and three-dimensional forms. He’s best known for his intricate patterns, tessellations and impossible figures that challenge the viewer’s perception of reality.
He could make water appear as though it flowed uphill, or ascending and descending stairs that seemed to go up and down simultaneously. His gridded and interlocking patterns appear endless and infinite, just as his use of perspective created unusual and paradoxical spatial relationships. He created a sense of fluidity and change, often depicting objects transforming into other objects, one small step at a time.
But now, let’s thread our way back through history to find some instances of how illusion was used in art, textiles, embroidery and quilting.
The illusionistic effect of Trompe l’oeil has been a part of art history for centuries. The ancient Greeks and Romans loved to fool the eye with realistic depictions of painted grapes so real that birds tried to eat them, or painted curtains that appeared convincingly authentic.
The term Trompe L’oeil means to ‘deceive the eye’ in French. Greek and Roman art employed the technique, particularly in Pompeii, where murals created illusions of windows, doors or hallways.
Renaissance artists embraced Trompe l’oeil to create illusionistic framing devices to suggest openings in walls or ceilings. A notable example is Andrea Mantegna’s ‘Camera degli Sposi’ or Room of the Married Couple, in the Ducal Palace of Mantua.
Dutch artist Cornelius Norbertus Gijsbrechts perfected the technique in the 17th century to create highly realistic paintings where objects appeared to project from the canvas. It was also particularly popular in the United States during the late 19th century, with artists such as William Harnett and John Frederick Peto producing realistic still life along with objects that seemed to project from the canvas.
Both Picasso and Braque incorporated trompe l’oeil techniques into their work, and the technique continues to be used by contemporary artists today, still able to question the viewer’s perception of reality.
All these historical examples used the key features of illusion, utilising three-dimensionality through the depictions of textures, shadows and perspectives to create a convincing illusion.
A search on Pinterest using Illusion Quilts brings up myriad images, mostly based on geometric optical illusions that quilters have interpreted using fabric and stitch – and they are amazing. But there are also Vortex quilts, 3d quilts, and Window to My World Quilts
However, Australian quilter Dianne Firth takes illusion a step further by working on net using solid lines of fabric or fabric shapes to create quilts where these elements appear to float in soft waves or gently undulating curves.
To find examples of the use of illusion in embroidery, we travel back to Elizabethan stumpwork or raised work. What makes stumpwork stand out from other styles of embroidery is its use of dimensionality that adds depth and texture to the work, making the embroidery come to life from that otherwise flat surface.
As expected, there’s more than one way to raise stitches in stumpwork, which is why it’s sometimes referred to as raised work.
There’s a large selection of stitches that create dimension on their own, such as French Knots, Bullion Stitch, Spider’s Web, Turkey Work, Velvet Stitch, and stitches with the word raised in front, such as Raised Chain Band, Raised Fishbone and Couching.
Padding is also used to create different surface levels. You can pad with stitches themselves by working them over the top of each other, such as layers of laid work stitches, finally covered by Satin Stitch, forming padded Satin Stitch. Chain Stitch can also be used to create padding.
Another way to create padding with stitches is to couch heavy threads of floss or thread, then cover with Satin or Stem Stitch over the top.
An easy way to raise embroidery is to use felt, quilt batting or foam. Attach to the ground fabric, then cover with embroidery.
Then we get to the structural, almost architectural techniques that can truly lift embroidery completely off the ground surface. One method involves working an embroidered element separately on another piece of cloth, this is called a slip, cutting it out, then appliquéing it onto the design. These may be gently stuffed as they’re attached, giving a softly raised effect.
But to truly achieve structural integrity, wire is used to lift and support certain elements of embroidery, giving the illusion of a hovering, moment-captured-in-time look, such as a butterfly, bud, flower, leaf or vine, gently bursting away from the 2D embroidered surface. This can be kept within the confines of the design or draped over the edges for a striking effect.
Then there are a plethora of embellishments such as beads, pearls, sequins, buttons, ribbons, jewels, mirrored glass and even shells, that also help create dimension within the work.
There were occasions when embroidery was used to mimic jewels to create a sense of opulence and wealth, perhaps when real jewels were unavailable.
Many cultures and historical periods intentionally used embroidery to mimic the appearance of jewels and precious stones on religious and court garments.
Techniques using gold and silver thread, pearls, small stones and beetle wings helped create an illusion of luxury and opulence that conveyed a message of power, status and religious significance.
Now I’m moving on to more tools of the trade with more techniques that can fool the eye.
How do we suggest the illusion of three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface?
Susan Brandeis addresses this in her book ‘The Intentional Thread: A Guide to Drawing, Gesture and Colour in Stitch’, published by Schiffer Publishing in 2019. If yoy’d like to read my review of this book, click here.
Embroidery artists may use any of the following:
- Size: Using smaller objects to make them appear more distant.
- Overlapping: Allows objects to seem closer than the objects obscured. The Bayeux Tapestry exemplifies a medieval use of this illusion.
- Vertical Location: To infer distance in a composition, elements are placed towards the top of the work. Think of a landscape where hills in the distance are located towards the top of the design to give that feeling of a long distance.
- Atmospheric Perspective: This is where the use of colour or value shows depth. Value contrasts between objects gradually lessen as depth increases, and shape contours become less distinct. The illusion of distance is achieved by using unintensified or duller colours, less distinct hue contrasts and fuzzy shape contours.
- Linear Perspective: By gradually making objects smaller, they seem to recede towards a vanishing point.
Shading is another means of stitching that allows degrees of transparency to suggest the visual illusion of three-dimensional space or volume on a two-dimensional surface.
Brandeis also mentions the use of the gradation of colour to create shading – think of hatching, cross-hatching and stippling in drawing, techniques that can easily be re-interpreted using stitch.
Gradations are variable and can include changes in stitch selection, thread weight, density of stitch, colour values of threads used or scale of stitching, all will contribute to the overall effect.
Tapestry weavers and embroiderers have used colour hatching for centuries. Embroiderers use the alternating Long and Short stitch to blend colours in ways that create new composite colours or imply three-dimensionality.
Cross-hatching, using crossed lines or grids, is visually stable in effect. Brandies writes: ‘The size, scale, character, density, proximity, irregularity and angles of line intersections all contribute to the amount of shading or sense of dimension created.’
Hatching and cross-hatching in black can create shadows, increasing a sense of perspective. A simple straight stitch can be used to achieve this effect.
So, stippling masses or clusters of straight stitches, tiny dots or marks can be used to shade, define, emphasise or fill in backgrounds, surfaces or shapes.
‘Gradations in stippling, achieved through changes in dot or mark size, density, value, colour, or line weight, tend to move the eye through a composition or to create the illusion of volume or space. As a shading tool, stippling has the advantage of producing very fine-grained gradations, thus increasing your ability to achieve delicacy and nuance,’ states Brandeis.
Stippling is a useful tool for the illusion of space or volume. It can be worked in French Knots, Seed, Chain, or Fly Stitch. Whether the stitches are worked in tiny clusters, contours or scattered masses, the chosen stitch will impact the textural feel of the shading.
Varying the density of stippling or using concentrations of marks from dense to less dense can create the illusion of folds or bends in the fabric – another useful tool in the illusion arsenal. Stitches can also create a halo effect around a shape, forming a dynamic visual result.
Add value to the mix, moving from light, lights to dark, darks, and stippling becomes even more powerful, creating the effect of light and shadow.
But that’s not all. Change the weight of the thread, and the effect is one of establishing hierarchy. Moving in a line from thin, medium to heavy-weight threads also creates shading that adds to our awareness of physical dimension.
This is an amazing topic, but unless you fully understand all aspects of how to achieve illusion in embroidery, you may be missing out, and the only real way to learn is to sample.
Visual or surface texture is a powerful player in illusion in embroidery.
Again, Brandeis is right on the money here: She writes: ‘Each stitch has its own texture, but flat stitches can be enhanced by layering, lacing, padding, along with adding embellishments. Texture can be built to emphasise or differentiate shapes, add visual interest or complexity, populate and fill larger background areas, or convey the experience of touching objects in the real world.’
Who hasn’t been seduced by an embroidered texture that begs to be touched and felt? For me, that’s successful embroidery.
Colour mixing in embroidery, whether by hand or machine, is another way to achieve the optical illusion of transparency.
One of the best books I’ve come across on the technique of free machine embroidery and colour mixing is by American quilter, Carol Shinn, who wrote ‘Freestyle Machine Embroidery: Techniques and Inspiration for Fiber Art’, published by Interweave Press in 2009.
Her work on colour mixing is incredible, but I want to focus on the illusion of transparency.
Shinn writes that to make a shape appear transparent, it must partially overlap another shape. Think of a group of thick horizontal and vertical lines – using the illusion of transparency, you can determine whether some of those lines appear to lie in front of or behind other lines. Think about it – it’s how both the parent colour and the child colour, the transparent colour, are used.
Our eyes read that clever colour mixing to determine a form of three-dimensionality on a two-dimensional surface, simply by how we colour-mix those intersections.
But there are other ways to achieve transparency. Embroidery onto transparent organza or fine net allows for the creation of shadows or layered effects. The play of light and shadow can create illusions of depth and dimension.
The reflective quality of Shisha work also creates the illusion of depth and light reflected from each small mirror.
Reverse appliqué creates a layered effect, while Shadow Work, involving embroidery on the reverse side of a semi-transparent fabric, creates a shadow on the right side of the fabric.
Illusion embroidery creates the effect of depth and dimensionality, so who are some of the modern masters of illusion?
Marian Bijlenga from the Netherlands works in patterns and is fascinated by the way dots and other small units can connect into lines and larger groups. She calls her work ‘spatial drawing’.
Jane Nicholas specialises in Goldwork and Stumpwork techniques that lift embroidery off that two-dimensional plane.
Justyna Wolodkiewicz produces tiny abstract sculptures that she incorporates into her embroidery, creating both shadow and dimension.
Sally Mavour’s embroidered artistry comes alive in her Wee Folk studio, where dimension and texture are the order of the day.
Meredith Woolnough’s free machine embroidery on soluble fabric creates the illusion of depth with amazing cast shadows.
What if you want to experiment with illusion? Where do you start?
The best place to begin is with basic embroidery shading techniques. My best advice would be to sample, experiment, and truly understand your objective and how best to achieve it. Unfortunately, not many books set you on this path – many teach a technique, but the art of interpreting a line, emotion, or illusion is, sadly, lacking. Again, I reference Susan Brandeis’s book ‘The Intentional Thread: A Guide to Drawing, Gesture and Colour in Stitch. This is an amazing resource for the embroiderer who wants to explore the emotion of stitch.
Do you think you can trick the eye with your stitching?
Embroidery has always held a touch of magic, and stitched illusions dazzle the eye and certainly challenge the mind.
We’ve travelled from centuries-old stumpwork to modern masters that blur the line between thread, fabric and reality, all performed by using and understanding the art of embroidery.
I hope this episode inspires you to investigate, research, and embroider your own stitched illusions. They are magical and sometimes very easily incorporated into your work.
Until the next episode, keep stitching your story, one stitch at a time.
Recommended Reading:
‘The Intentional Thread: A Guide to Drawing, Gesture and Colour in Stitch’, written by Susan Brandeis, published by Schiffer Publishing in 2019.
‘Freestyle Machine Embroidery: Techniques and Inspiration for Fiber Art’, written by Carol Shinn, published by Interweave Press in 2009.
