Drawing at "Embroidered Dreams"

After Tuesday's drawing at the Brunei Gallery [check back next Tuesday for a full report], I returned this morning with coloured pencils for more. The exhibition finishes on 25 March.

Upstairs were ikat costumes and embroideries from central Asia, wonderfully colourful -

Some details -

I sat down on the floor in front of the luscious green silk with its strange shapes -

 My greens weren't as luscious as the original; one option was to add a wash, at home. Another was to be bolder ... I did try, but couldn't commit to Complete Boldness. Merging the two greens with a white made it look a bit better, and there's the possibility of adding more colour on top of that -

On a closer look, it turned out that different panels had been sewn together before embroidery, hence the different shades in the background -

Not only that, but what I thought was black turned out to be purple; what I thought was orange turned out to be pink; and all the embroidery was chain stitch, including the alternating red-yellow outlining -

 Next subject, a bit of the 19th century suzani from Samarkand, on which the silk embroidery looked like twill weave -

Rather than matching colours, I settled for a close approximation, and left some areas undone to look for better colours at home -

Anyway, it was time for lunch. Crude as it may be - and unfinished - it was such a pleasure to do. Through looking closely at the stitching, and the arrangement of the pattern, I felt connected to the person who made it.