Embroidered appliques rely on a drawing to start with. It’s always a moment when I take a deep breath and give it my best shot. I’m not good at drawing. I’m just stubborn enough to keep at it until I have something useful that I’m usually aiming for is a creature in motion. I hate still lifes because the last thing they seem to be is living. If it’s in motion, it’s live.

In a way this is another reason for free motion. The perfection you find in computerized embroidery doesn’t help us here. Being less regular, smooth and even make things more real and interesting.

I usually draw on Totally Stable, which is a fairly good thin drawing surface that irons on and tears away from the final embroidery surface. It does not erase well, but I usually trace my first drawing to clean it up and to get it going in the right direction. Since the drawing is my pattern on the back, it needs to be facing the opposite direction for the applique. I do make some adjustments for shrinkage. Check out my post Drawing on Distortion for a discussion on how to plan for that.

Is it moving already?

Of course we are talking about a two dimensional art form. How do you make it move? There are several good tricks.

If it’s walking, flying, crawling or stepping up, you’re already half way there.

Don’t make things symmetrical

If things are in dimension, one side is always a bit smaller than the other. Of course it helps if one side is moving differently than the other. But the closer side will have a bigger eye, hand, wing, claw or whatever. That’s how we’d perceive it in life.

Depend on angles

. Things either drawn with an angle or put on an angle give the illusion of motion because our mind tells us they are in motion. We expect gravity to be in play when we see something at an angle. It’s moving because in real life it would be moving.

The best reference book I know for this is The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. I’m not a big Disney fan, but Disney knows about creating images that flow and move from one frame to another. It’s not a cheap book but it’s one of the best.

So I draw things. And redraw them. And scratch out the lines I don’t like. And trace it once or twice. Until I have something that moves me and moves.