Sketching the illustrations for a new special project.
Published on HivePostify by @silviabeneforti · Wed Sep 02 2026
Hello hivers, an happy Tuesday to you all!
Today I'm here because I want to tell you about a very special project about some embroidered books! Around a couple of weeks ago my friend Rossella asked me to be part of a group of people who are working to write, illustrate and embroider 8 books on linen, each of them that tells the story of a woman who came here in Italy from other countries to have a better life. The first steps of the project was to interview 8 women (from Albania, Pakistan, Ukraine and others) and to write her story in a short way. After some artists (like me ❤️) had to create the illustrations and some wonderful women now are embroidering the text and the illustration! At the end, around December, it will be a public event to show all the works to the citizen and to tell the stories behind those books. Isn't it an awesome project? ❤️
Every story we are telling has an happy end, this is because talking with many women who came here along the time they said to feel the need to know about an happy end after a lot of bad things and, sure, the hope is something very important in difficult time. ❤️
Today I worked hard to finish my sketch so tomorrow I could give them to the woman who will draw them on the linen fabric. When the fabric was ready, an wonderful woman 87 years old (yes, 87!) will embroider the book. She's is a very good embroiderer, I watched some of her recent works and I can't say you how excellent she is in this field! I can't wait to see the final result, believe me.
I worked on the story of a nice woman came here from Albania many years ago. She is a dressmaker and now she has a beautiful tailoring shop in my city.
It was no simple to work on this illustrations, because I had to think my usual illustrative style in a more simple way to make it simple to embroider. At the same time, I wanted to focus the attention on the story and not just on the drawings, so I decided to use just few colors: the red and the black that are the colors of Albania and on the last pages I added the green (the colors of Italy are green, white and red) to mean the mix between the 2 countries.
At know I can't show you the entire sketch with the text because there are some details of the story that it's soon to show around, but when everuthing will be done I'll share with you everything!
I hope you like it! See ya soon and stay safe, Silvia
If you like my artworks, you can find them on my online shops on Artfinder ( https://www.artfinder.com/silviabeneforti#/ ), on Etsy ( https://www.etsy.com/shop/vumap ) and on my Saatchi page too (https://www.saatchiart.com/en-it/account/profile/421497). If you are interested about my artworks, you can buy my catalogue here:
US (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9S4VLQK) Italy (https://www.amazon.it/dp/B0C9S4VLQK) Uk (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C9S4VLQK) You can find it in different countries, you have just to search "silvia beneforti portfolio" on Amazon. ^^ ^^
Tags: #art#artist#painting#creativecoin#illustration#proofofbrain