Billowing Clouds and Rainbow-Hued Sunsets Created by Vera Shimunia

Russian embroidery artist Vera Shimunia began her landscape embroidery practice in 2015. She tells Colossal that it is the perfect medium for her because it requires less patience than cross-stitch and is more exciting, in her opinion, than painting. The Saint Petersburg-based artist is self-taught (Shimunia studied economics in college) and she shares that she imagines the needle as a brush. Her richly-hued mountainscapes, sunrises, and skies are crafted on palm-sized embroidery hoops using a variety of textured threads. Although Shimunia uses a unified color palette over a small surface area, she distinguishes different landscape elements using various stitch and knot styles, as well as thin, thick, and even three-dimensional fibers. You can see more of her embroideries on Instagram, and purchase work in her Etsy store.