Tortoise & Flowers Embroidery

I started with a drawing which I blogged in January [link]. I made the drawing larger and printed it in sections on a laser printer, then I transferred the drawing to a blank piece of canvas fabric using oil of wintergreen. Have you ever used this stuff? It stinks! It smells like a strong 'germolene' and can be quite overpowering. The smell seems to linger for ages too even with the windows open. So I think if I use it again, it should be when it is warmer and I can do it outside. I then painted some of the areas on the fabric, such as the tortoises and grass with liquitex inks and airondack color wash. Lots of freehand machine embroidery came next. The longest time was spent doing all the hand embroidery and beading. The whole shell on the main tortoise is beaded. One of the things I wanted to do this year was some beading so one goal achieved. After finishing all the embroidery I wrapped the fabric around a canvas frame with thin wadding sandwiched in between.