THE WATER URNS AND THE MOSQUE (Weekly art project #4, 2020.)

Another week, and another art project that takes me back to an inspiring time in Egypt.

This week my inspiration comes from a particularly memorable 5 km walk. 

We had disembarked from our dahibeya and stepped out onto a dirt track that took us past fields of crops where stork-like birds wandered picking off bugs & providing a natural pesticide service. With the welcome pleasure of shade from the date palms we continued on, identifying mango, banana, orange & dom trees scattered along the route.

Our wonder filled sojourn led us to a small traditional cafe, usually frequented by men only, where we drank down glasses of the blissful  mint infused black tea. Whilst sitting & sipping I looked out at this mosque. Immediately I fell in love with the rich colours & white decorative frieze at the top.

I was also enamoured with these beautifully shaped water urns that sat a few metres in front of the cafe.  I suspect their cool water has quenched many a farmers thirst as it would have the mosque attendees after kneeling at prayer.

With these two photographs to inform me, I took out a pencil & started a visual record of what I was attracted to in these images.  It is such an important way to study the subject. I definitely see more by the focus required in drawing.
There was a lot of information here to try & compose into a design!

I began by seeing what I could fit into a water urn shape.  After a few variations, I then rotated my frame to a landscape format & it was then that my ideas seemed to come together in a more pleasing arrangement.

For my colour palette I wanted to stay as close as possible to the mosque colours.  I also chose to include a brick patterened fabric because in between the white decorative feature   bricks were exposed & I thought using this fabric was a way of referencing them without having to actually replicate bricks in my design.

There was also a treasure I want to include in my project!

During the drawing process, I'd noticed the pole outside the mosque was covered in election campaign posters. This reminded me that I still had a little plastic bag of 'finds' from our Egyptian trip.  Each time I travel I keep my eyes open for some discarded treasure that I could use in my textile art making.  Sometimes there are buttons or lost earrings that make their way into my plastic bag, in Egypt though, one of the found items was the remains of an election brochure!

With my 'use your tools' mantra still quite loud in my head, I knew that the time to use this salvaged item, was now!!

For this design I made the decision to have two different 'outline' colours.  After cutting, ironing & layering up my fabrics, I stitched in the lower outline fabric. It is hard, at this stage, to discern what the outcome will look like!!

Carefully I lined up the upper most fabric to stitch in the remaining lines.

At last it was time to start cutting back & see how my ideas worked!  Here's how the cutting back went;

I was so pleased with how it all looked so far.  The white did feel rather loud, but I recognised that that was because of the red based colours I had surrounding it.

There was one finishing touch I wanted to add.  Time to get the paint & a very thin brush out!

This is the finished result & I'm very happy with it. 
There are a few changes I'd make if I was doing it again, mainly in regards to colour placement.   Overall though, this is a satisfactory outcome that instantly reminds me of that fabulous walk & how priveleged we were to experience it!
I am really enjoying getting back into this routine & can't wait to see what inspires me next week!  Happy creating.