Tuesday 8 August 2017

WEEKLY ART PROJECT #42; MAGPIE MATTERS

The magpies have been messing with my body clock!

One of the delights of living where I live, is that in the big old trees gathered in my front yard, many birds like to visit.  There is nothing quite like starting the day with birdsong & the caroling of magpies is one of my favourites.

HOWEVER, at the moment, they are in their mating season & establishing both relationships & territory.  This means that magpies can be heard at any time of day or night!  With a body clock attuned to the sound of magpies signalling it as time to get up....their current tendency to chortle away in the earlier hours of the morning is really discombobulating my sleep pattern. Consequently, I am...a magpie affected zombie!

There's nothing else to do, but make magpies the subject of my weekly art project!

After gathering together a few photos, I decided on my water pens & black paint to make some very loose images, with the main focus being on the shapes of black & white.

Further exploration & then a linear breakdown of spaces & shapes helped me on my way to creating a usable design to try out with fabric.

The lines of sewing held only 4 fabric layers & a backing in place.

As  the first two layers were black fabrics, I chose to skip cutting the first layer back until after I had dealt with the lighter coloured fabrics.  This gave a cleaner line to the edge & sharper contrast.

Even with minimal cutting back, it was beginning to look interesting.

Cutting back the first black layer to reveal the second doesn't look like much in this image, but, being satin, that second layer does look good with the light on it! A shiny fabric  dances with the light, & brings energy & interest to a piece.

I had noticed that in my haste to get the project done, I hadn't included a fabric for the background....what little there is!  Therefore, I whipped out the paints & painted directly onto the area.  Problem solved!

Although this type of design is more like what I'd do as a sample piece in preliminary work for a bigger project, I am still quite pleased with the outcome.  With a brain considerably vaguer than usual, multiple interruptions & many distractions, I was just pleased to get SOMETHING done at all!!








No comments:

Post a Comment