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!