While most portrait artists rely on pencil and paper, textile artist Andrea Cryer’s tools at hand are a needle and thread. Combining hand stitching with machine stitching—or as Cryer calls it “drawing with thread and writing with stitch”—her work has been exhibited around the world.
A 2018 Contestant of the Sky Arts Landscape Artist, most recently Cryer took part in @tomcroftartist‘s initiative to create a free portrait of an NHS worker. Her stitched line drawings are sometimes colored with disperse dyes and pastels. “When drawing with thread, I tend to use black and a range of grey yarns on differing weights of fabric, such as cotton, canvas and linen,” Cryer further explained her process in an interview with Textile Artist. “Colour is added using disperse dyes which I hand print onto the drawn image after it has been stitched. This is a labour intensive process as each colour is applied separately and may be built up in layers to achieve the depth of tone or effect needed.”
According to Cryer, her use of textile was fairly intuitive, as she learned the craft from her parents. “I learned about sewing and developed my love of textiles from both my parents,” she recalled. “My mom made clothes and knitted cardigans for me and my three sisters. My dad was a tailor who made fabulous suits with wonderful linings.”
Enjoy some of her work in the gallery below, and follow her Instagram page for more.
