TEXT & TWEET (WAP #8; Egypt)

The Luxor Temple site was fabulous to explore, not only for it's Pharaohonic remains, but also the evidence that the site has had various reincarnations throughout the years!  It was used by Alexander The Great at some stage, it has been a Roman Camp & in more recent times a whole village has resided within the walls & pillars of this site. 

In a well covered corner we caught glimpses of coloured plaster work showing part of a scene that clearly had nothing to do with Rameses 2!!

In amidst all those 'jigsaw puzzle' blocks that I referred to last week, I found these two precious discoveries.  They were so very different from the ones decorated in the recognizable style of temple relief work. They definitely intrigued me.

Therefore, I chose to use them as my inspiration source for this week's art project.

Before anything else, I decided to prepare my background.  It was here that I sought to refer to the stamped marks in the first block.
 In my stash I had come across an old paint cleaning cloth, well encrusted with paint, smudges & splotches.  Building on the texture it already had I stamped a few more linear marks in black until I was satisfied that I had an interesting background that could be interpreted as some form of language.

While that was drying it was time to think about the bird.
I love this little bird motif!  It is so stylistically simple, yet still a charming character!  It took me a bit of time with the pencil to get my lines proportioned satisfactorily!
What was I going to do about colour?
With such a busy background, I knew I had to keep the colour relatively plain & solid.

Once my choices were made, I checked that my range of fabrics had a good balance of colour value by using the black & white app on my camera.

After ironing, layering up & then stitching the design through, it was time to let the cutting back begin.

 The two blue fabrics I'd chosen were hand painted pieces, one slightly lighter than the other.  That effect was EXACTLY what I wanted, as it gave the bird more detail & interest, without distracting the eye too much with the visual noise of another contrasting colour.

 The original stone relief has another outline around it, so I thought I'd cut back the fabrics to allow a shallow border of the blue to be visible.  I'm quite happy with the result. It added interest & it's a bit different!!

With the addition of a few lines & colouring in with the gel pen my little bird was complete!
I am very pleased with this outcome, and I'm glad my choices haven't detracted from this little bird's charm!