WHITE DESERT (Weekly Art Project #16, 2020)

 If corona virus hadn't brought international travel to a standstill, I would be in Portugal right now!  And sadly, making a darn fine Piripiri Chicken, eating portugese tarts & sipping a superb wine from the Alentejo region just doesn't quite take that loss away!

 I've been so very grateful for my travel experiences and recognise that I'm privileged to have been able to visit the places I have. Often have I said "If I never travel again, I'm grateful for where I've been, what & I've seen & done" ... and I am, but..... it is also true that, for me,  travel is a teensy bit addictive, the more I see the more I want to see and right now I'm experiencing withdrawal symptoms.  This is made worse of course by the onset of much cooler weather here in Adelaide.

All the more valueable then is my weekly escape to Egypt for my art project, even if it is armchair travel!

This week our journey takes us on & into the stunning White Desert.
Twenty million years ago, the Red Sea covered the Western Desert & in the time since then the land has become this incredible landscape of limestone deposits called inselbergs!

 Imagine a landscape covered in meringue shapes & you'll have a good idea of how it looked. The inselbergs came in all shapes & sizes & some have acquired pet names since tourists started visiting.  We had so much fun  walking around them identifying the Eagle, the Mushroom, the Rabbit and the Lion! .

How to capture them as a memory trigger was going to be interesting!

 It occurred to me that inselbergs also looked like ripped paper shapes, so I thought I might start there.  Perhaps I could draw them & create a design from them?

 I scrunched the shapes up & they looked even more evocative of their limestone cousins.  In fact, they looked so good, I decided not to draw them, but to brush some protective matt medium over them intending to stitch the more interesting shapes directly onto fabric!

Okay, that would work, but where was the contemporary reverse applique going to come in?

 I didn't need to look far for the answer to that question! 
As well as wandering around this bizarrely beautiful landscape, we were also going to hunker down & watch the sun set whilst eating a meal.  Our guide set up a wonderful screen to keep the wind & sand off us as we cooked & ate.  The fabric is printed, but is in the design of the elaborate tent panels of former years.  The patterns are beautiful, so I thought I'd like a reference to them in my design.
I quickly drew a few of the patterns that I could decipher from this small photograph, with a large dose of my own imagination!!  From this I worked up a design & chose to make it a low border on my art piece.  It was time to get started.

 To represent the brilliance of the blue sky, I chose a sunprint sample from my stash & kept plain colours for my border.

 Already having white cotton in the sewing machine I stitched in the Inselbergs before changing the thread for the blue outlines.   Then it was cutting back time!

This is the end result. I haven't worked with paper on fabric much before, but really enjoy the crinkley aspect & feel of it.  The down side though is that I'm afraid I'll lose all those lovely creases if I iron that top section, which means the sky looks a bit dire!  I love the border & am very pleased with how that has worked out.  All in all, an unusual outcome, but it does instantly transport me back to the White Desert & sitting by an open fire, protected by the wind as we watched the sun go down. A truly special experience.
I hope you have enjoyed this week's blog & are finding inspiration in your own travel experiences, whether to far off places, or just around your living room.  Happy creating.