tiliqua tiliqua

During the COVID lockdowns I started experimenting with my two creative loves, nature photography and hand embroidery. I’m not sure whatever gave me the idea, but I remember thinking ‘why the heck not’. I started printing my photographs, using my home printer, onto cotton A4 sheets and then moved quickly into professional printing as I found the quality much better, and I was not limited by size. Over the last 4 years hand embroidering my own photographs has since become my Jam. I don’t think I could return fully to straight photography anymore. I now look through the lens and see an embroidery in the making. It has to be a certain style of photograph to be embroidered, and I have developed my own style of photography in order to achieve this.

The kinds of photographs I enjoy embroidering are flowers, birds, forests and moss/lichen/fern images. I am heavily influenced by National Parks and Botanic Gardens. I print the photographs onto linen, or fine art canvas. I then intermittently stare at the printed photograph for several days and start formulating ideas. I generally like to partially embroider an image, as the photograph itself is a very important component of the finished piece. The embroidery ideally embellishes the overall image and draws attention to the subject, or it might tell a story.

You can see more of Alissa’s work @alissa_cook_photoembroidery