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Sat 26 May 1951 - The Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982)
Page 51 - Artist paints with stitches
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ARTIST Helen Baldwin used embroidery stitches in this picture of the departure of the
Jubilee Sturt Expedition for the Murray River after it had been farewelled by friends
in period dress. Below right: Another study shows a Balinese dancer.
Artist paints with stitches
By DOROTHY GREEN
An unusual record of the Jubilee re-enactment of Sturt's 1830
expedition down the Murray River has been made in needlework by
New South Wales artist Helen Baldwin (Mrs. Eric Skarratt).
MEASURING 27 inches by 14
inches, it shows the party being
farewelled by friends in period costume
at the gates of Government House,
Sydney, their boat mounted on a dray.
The picture is worked in colored wools and
silks in petit-point and gros-point, varieties bf
satin-stitch. Flesh tones and other fine detail
arc in petit-point, 400 stitches to the square
inch, and the remainder in
gros-point, 100 stitches to
the square inch.
Similar to tapestry in
effect, it will be included
in an exhibition which Miss
Baldwin hopes to hold in
Sydney later this year. It
took six weeks to complete.
Miss Baldwin classes her
work as pictorial embroi-
dery. She points out that
tapestry is woven on a
loom, the design being part
of the process of making
the cloth.
Her embroidery is more
in the tradition of the his-
torical Bayeux tapestry.
The result is as far from
the ordinary conception of
embroidery as could be
imagined. From a few
paces off, Helen Baldwin's
embroidery has all the ap-
pearance and liveliness of
water-color or oil-paintings.
The sewing technique is
also far removed from that
°f the famous Bayeux
tapestry, the actual stitchery of which is some-
what crude.
"A newspaper photograph gave me the basic
idea for the picture," said Miss Baldwin. "Then
I had to sketch it out on a larger scale in
water-colors, and rearrange it slightly to show
the faces.
"They didn't come out clearly in the news-
paper reproductions, so I had to use my
imagination a bit. I prefer to work from living
models if I can."
When Miss Baldwin had finished her sketch
and worked out the color-scheme, her next
job was to draw the picture in ink on em
broidery canvas. "That's always the most
monotonous part of the job," she said. "After
that, it's a matter of 'painting with the needle'."
After doing this type of needlework for
about 10 years, Miss Baldwin has the apprecia-
tion of a small but expanding circle of art col-
lectors here.
Some of her "pictures" will be shown shortly
at Charleston, U.S.A. They are examples
taken to America recently by art collector
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HELEN BALDWIN (Mrs. E. N.
Skarratt), who uses wools and
silks instead of paints to create
her embroidery pictures.
Dr. Richard Siau, husband
of Norman Lindsay's
daughter Helen.
Dr. Siau was enthusias-
tic about Miss Baldwin's
work.
Critics say her figures
are especially good. Ex-
pressions on faces and the
reproduction of flesh tones
have been described as
unique in this type of em-
broidery.
Miss Baldwin, who
taught herself her craft, was
born in Blayney, N.S.W.
Now in her early thirties,
she says she's been draw-
ing and painting for as
long as she can remember.
After an art course at
Sydney Technical College,
she did commercial work
for a while, wrote and
illustrated children's books,
then married architect Eric
Skarratt.
Since then, at her home
in Glenbrook, on the Blue
Mountains, she has concen
trated mainly on embroidery, because, she says,
"It's thc kind of job you can pick up in odd
minutes at home. I like to brood about oil
pa;nting and water-color, and a housewife never
seems to have any long stretches of time with-
out being interrupted."
Helen Baldwin finds her time fully occupied
running a home (she's a masterly cook), look-
ing after a garden, and caring for her husband
and five-year-old son John.
One of her most successful portraits is an
amazing and delicate likeness of young John,
in petit-point about 1000 stitches to the square
inch.