You don’t have to be a bird person to enjoy Chloe Redfern’s embroideries, but it won’t hurt if you are. Focusing almost exclusively on birds, her embroideries are minimalist, using bright colored string.
Each unique piece begins the same way: with preparatory drawings that are based on either photographs or Redfern’s imagination. Sometimes she will also utilize collage as a compositional aid, cutting out pieces of paper to try different arrangements. But when she’s making an abstract piece, she will generally work more spontaneously, laying down stitch to see what emerges.
“I love the possibilities of embroidery and the range of marks and textures that can be built up with stitch,” Redfern writes on her website. “I tend to use back stitch and stem stitch to ‘draw’ outlines, before using straight stitches of varying lengths to fill in space and add areas of pattern.”
And as to her chosen subject, she admits that she’s drawn to the colors and patterns birds’ feathers tend to feature. Those translate perfectly into stitch. But she doesn’t exclude other animals. “I love to stitch pictures of other animals too, and I’m also very inspired by plants, gardens and the landscape,” she admits.
Here are some of our favorite pieces:
