Inspired by Otomi Embroidery
- Kaaren Poole
- Apr 22
- 3 min read
This art journal spread came into being last Sunday. It was a difficult day for me, and I found that all I could focus on was this free-wheeling project.
Once again, I’ve been inspired by a video from Suzanne Allard. This time, she was getting her inspiration from Mexican Otomi embroidery. I wasn’t previously familiar with that style of embroidery, but it’s native to a district in central Mexico and is characterized by bright colors and local or fanciful flora and fauna motifs. It’s a highly decorative style in which each feather in a bird’s wing may be a different color! It’s worked in lavish detail on white or off-white fabric.
So I decided on birds, drew them, then painted the background around them. I wanted something with a little color for the background and so used a few different pale peaches blending into each other rather than the traditional white and I added splotches of alcohol ink. I like some visual texture in my backgrounds.
Then I started painting the large bird. I didn’t choose all my colors before I began. Instead, I pulled out a few greens, turquoise, blue, bright pink, orange, and yellow. Later I saw I needed darker colors and added the maroon and dark green. The only strategy I had for color placement was to keep the wings and tail in the green/blue colors and the head and chest in the warm colors. From there, I was placing them more or less randomly.
I didn’t particularly like the piece at that stage. In fact, I hated it! But I decided to persevere and did what seemed least risky - adding details to the bird. I still didn’t like it, but the busywork kept me going.
I painted the young birds much more simply, figuring their coloring would develop later as they grew. Likewise, their top-knots are small.
Originally, I thought I would tightly cover the entire background with foliage, flowers, and fruits in bright colors and varying sizes. But in the end, I thought the more sparse foliage with larger leaves and large berry clusters worked better with these loud and colorful creatures.
Although I started out hating this piece, in the end I thought it was OK and has promise as a basis for another, more thought-through painting.
But all along, I liked the smaller birds. The large bird looks sort of scary to me, but the young ones just look goofy. If I do tackle another try at this basic theme, I think I’d make the large bird more benign and include more smaller ones interacting with each other.
Have you ever noticed that when you do a piece inspired by someone else’s style, it’s still identifiable as yours? I guess that’s what they mean by “making it your own.” And I also guess we can't help being ourselves.
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