Triptych Evolution

When I first got the idea to make a triptych inspired by the poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay,"  I thought of the haze of color that first washes over the trees in spring.  I thought I would do three trees in the center of the triptych with this gentle wash of spring color,  and one additional tree on each side.  I thought maybe it would help illustrate the passage of time if the tree on the left depicted winter and the tree on the right depicted summer.  Hopefully the viewer would recognize the fleeting quality of spring so beautifully described by Robert Frost in the poem.

So I quickly stitched up this winter tree on Wednesday afternoon.  I liked the use of lace and the graceful branches, but thought it looked a little long and skinny.  It looked even less appealing next to the center piece:

When I began choosing colors for the summer tree on the right, I realized this was going off in the wrong direction.  I did a quick check through my stash and found some more of the white silk I used for the background.  I cut two smaller side pieces and painted them to match the sun streaks of the center piece.  I then stitched up two more trees.  This time, I used the tulle to illustrate the haze of color over the trees and machine stitched it in place instead of doing all that slow embroidery.  The piece has much more cohesion and still illustrates the poem pretty well.

 Below is a close-up of some of the trees.  I still like the one with the tulle (on the left) better than the one done with all french knots (and I am actually still somewhat mulling over the idea of doing those three center trees all over again), but all in all, I'm satisfied with the way it turned out.  A little more hand stitching and it will be ready to attach to the canvas!