ABOUT MARIPOSA LONDON
INSPIRED BY THE NATURAL WORLD
I am Lou, a self taught embroidery artist from London.
I started my creative journey in butterfly taxidermy but quickly realised that it was impossible to ascertain if the butterfly specimens received had died naturally. Animal welfare is important to me, so with this in mind, I decided to combine my love of embroidery and butterflies and create my own from scratch.
Every unique butterfly piece is hand made by me using free-hand thread painting and stumpwork techniques.
Scroll down to find out more about the process…
• THE PROCESS • THE PROCESS
THE WINGS
I start by sculpting a thin wire frame for each individual butterfly wing, which I then embroider with a single strand of cotton thread. Working from several photographs as reference, I use a free hand embroidery thread painting technique, layering multiple colours to capture the stunning detail of the species. The wings are then carefully cut out separately, ready for the next step.
THE BODY
Butterflies have 3 main body parts; head, thorax (chest or mid section) and abdomen (tail end). I sculpt these parts using felt for padding, couching methods and pom pom stitch, again observing photographs to get the detail as close to the real thing as possible.
FINAL PIECE
It all starts to come together when the individual butterfly wing ‘slips’ are secured around the body. I carefully tweak the position of the wings until I am happy with the final composition. The butterfly is then secured onto a foam board backing using traditional upholstery techniques. The final step is to frame and mount the butterfly in a deep box frame ready for its new home!
