THE SCRIPTURE OF OLD DOORS (Weekly Art Project; 2020)

 The small village of Al Qasr  is pretty much a ghost town.  It is like walking into a past where everyone has just left, so the atmosphere was eerie. Amidst the dust & decay they have left behind something truly precious though.  Breathtakingly precious.
 Above many of the eclectically shaped doors are wooden lintels carved with verses from the Koran. Here's a closer peek...

 They are very very old and worn with time, but oh so exquisitely beautiful.  It is these lintels that I use as my inspiration for this week's art project.

I have a soft spot for the written form of language, particularly those I don't understand & can't decipher. When there is no interpretation of meaning then I can enjoy the script for the marks that they are.  I also enjoy creating script out of various marks & shapes I come across in daily life.  To date I have created scripture using hair , possum bites on pansies & interesting branch shapes as the basis of letter forms.

With the lintel as inspiration, I wanted to give the impression of written language, but not copy what was written.  This means I had to find a source to start a form of writing from.  But where?

 I decided to start with the doors themselves.
Sitting at my computer screen with a pencil, conte crayon & graphite crayon I went through my photos drawing the interesting windows & doors that I'd captured on film. This was a most enjoyable & absorbing task & time just slipped away. At some stage though I realised that if I didn't stop soon I wouldn't have time to translate my ideas into fabric.  I'd had the idea that I could create a boxy-linear sort of script from the shapes of the windows & doors, but to be honest....the more I drew the  less that idea developed.  There was one door though that gave me another idea.

 This door with it's seriously deteriorated wooden slats had some wonderful wiggles & shapes especially with such a dark interior background providing a contrasting negative space. I made the decision to rotate this photo & draw a section.

 This was the result.
Using the central shapes as my starting point I started to widen some lines, thin others, erase some lines & extend others until eventually I had a series of marks that could be described as ancient script!

At this point in my blog, you would usually expect me to talk about choosing fabrics, layering up, stitching in & then cutting back etc.  Alas, due to the frustrations of a malfunctioning camera, I am not taking you on a cutting back journey today!  Instead, I'll take you directly to the end product!

 Voila!
I know what you're thinking....did that REALLY come from the drawing above??????
Yes..it most certainly did! 
I've added the border of triangles at the top as a nod to the original lintels which often had a simple patterned border.
This has been quite a process & took a lot of concentration, but I am very pleased with the result.

I couldn't help myself, I had to try it in my Layout app & this is one of the options it could become, a multi-repeat pattern. What fun!
 I hope that you have had the delicious experience of total absorption in something inspiring this week.  Stay safe & stay creative!

OFF TO MECCA (Weekly Art Project #14, 2020)

 I won't lie...it was not easy getting back to my weekly art project this week after having Easter Monday off, but...I did it anyway & I'm glad I did!

As you may recall, we'd left the Valley Of the Kings & were on our way to the Western Desert. In my pre-trip research I'd found reference to some alleged cave paintings along this route & asked our driver if we could deviate from the itinerary & try to find them.  We discovered that they were in fact carvings into rock left by pilgrims on their way to Mecca.  Simple lines representing camels were the most identifiable images & judging by how worn they were, these carvings had been there a long time.

That short visit proved to be a wonderful serendipitous inclusion in our day, for the next village we stopped at was Balat where the walls were decorated with drawings! Not every house had drawings on the walls, but those that did seemed to have camels, mosques or aircraft!  These had become symbols that someone in that house had been to Mecca.

Having a love of children's drawings, these simple and charming motifs completely grabbed my attention. Therefore this week's project is inspired by them.

 As per usual I started with drawings of what I'd recorded in my photographs. Once all that visual data was before me, the decision making began.  What to keep, what to exclude, how to arrange within an A4 space, which orientation to utilize....and the most important, how do I represent this in my own way without actually copying!

This is a tough question when inspired by something that someone else has drawn, designed or made. My way of processing this dilema was to look at the key componnents of the motifs that I particularly liked & then draw QUICKLY without looking at the photo!  I chose to draw quickly because I didn't want to be precise, I wanted a freer style of motif for my design.  The resulting outcome may be similar to what my photos showed, but is certainly not exact copies or composition.

Keeping to an equally simple colour palette, I found my fabrics, ironed them, layered them up & drew in the design before sitting down at the machine to stitch it through the wad of fabrics.

 For interest, I chose a contrasting thread in gold, which worked nicely against the terracotta fabric.  It was time to start cutting back....

Here's the completed piece.
I found some clay beads which worked perfectly as flowers in this composition, and complimented the colour palette.  The top fabric which forms the outline proved to fray more easily than I expected.  This didn't bother me as it gives a more aged & rustic look to the finished piece. All in all I'm very pleased with 'Off To Mecca' as it will instantly remind me of the tiny village of Balat & the whole experience of seeing these symbols represented first in stone, then in wall paintings. A happy result to get back into the weekly art project routine!

COPTIC DOVE (Weekly Art Project #13, 2020)

Even with the restrictions in travel & venturing forth generally, the week still seems to pass pretty quickly! However I do look forward to my Monday weekly art projects & the fact that they take me away from my present reality & make me remember my visit to Egypt.

What a wonderful gift memory is, or can be! I'd like to think that the act of remembering exercises that recall part of my brain!

This week my inspiration source is from a very tiny but special stop in the Western Desert.  We felt a sense of loss leaving The Valley Of the Kings.  It had been such an overwhelming experience to see these ancient sites that we had read about.  Heading into the desert we had no idea what to expect, but  needless to say...we were in for a treat.

The Necroplis of El Bagawat is where, up until the 7th century AD, local Coptic Christians buried their dead.  On site are the remains of dome topped chapels made of mud brick.  Some of the features on their arches & pillars are still barely visible.  Inside the white washed walls had traces of painted decorations, although a lot were damaged & some were quite faded.  Even so, there were glimpses of simple yet stunningly beautiful motifs of meaning.

The above Coptic cross intrigued me.  On close inspection I could see that it has borders of dots inside & out.

Sadly, because of the low light & not being able to use flash, all of my photos are out of focus.  One of the better ones is of this painted interior of a cuploa with doves in each corner.  The central part of the decoration looked like cascades of tear shaped droplets.  Such a simple colour palette & all the more effective for being so minimal.

With Easter coming up this weekend, I thought this dove was an appropriate subject for me to practice my skills with this week.

Unusually for me, I sat at the computer to begin the drawing stage of my design.  I hoped that being out of focus the larger scale might help me distinguish features & it certainly did.  Using the magnificent tool that a computer is, I also engaged Mr Google in helping to work out what some of the less obvious features were.  The page began to fill with the visual notes I drew down of the shapes, motifs & colour combinations I was particularly taken with.

Creating an original design with these elements took some time!  Fabric choice though took less than a minute!  I was so grateful to know I had pieces of fabric in my stash that would be relatively true to the original. My colour scheme was very simple; white, pale pink, mustard & burgundy.

Fabric cut & ironed, then layered up, the design traced & then sewn in, it was time to start cutting back.  Here's how it proceeded...

One of the things I hoped would work was that the painted dots on the background would balance the heaviness of the solid colours & density of the top section of the design. It works for me.  In hindsight I wish I'd curved those tear drops around the arch a bit more so that there wasn't a gap at the top.
I had wanted to allude to the Coptic cross & had initially put a very obvious cross in the background behind the dove.  However I removed it as I felt less was more & included the mustard colour into the dove design so that she became the embodiment of the cross arms & leg! I am very pleased with how my dove looks & the bigger bead eye is more balanced with the whole dove than my initial french knot was. (Which I didn't photograph so you'll just have to take my word for it!!)

I wish you all a very happy Easter break, no matter what beliefs you hold. My weekly art project will take a week off next Monday & I will return the week after that with fresh inspiration from the Western desert! Stay safe & keep creating!