As a topic for inspiration, the concept of 'Nature' leaves a lot of possibilities open. Before I had really started to think about what I could be doing for this particular challenge, I happened to stumble across a photo I had taken a while ago, when browsing through my photos in the cloud, and spontaneously decided that would be my inspiration. It's a reflection of a blackbird in a window on a building behind our house.
I knew quickly that I wanted to use particular pieces of fabric that had been hibernating in some boxes, and especially the sun that was the negative leftover from another quilt, to fill the gap behind the bird.
Therefore the leaves and branches first got moved around, proportions were altered, then the appearance of the background changed completely.
The words that came to my mind while I was working were a mixture of the Beatles songs "Blackbird" and "I'll follow the Sun". In the end I decided to stick with the sun, not the bird, although both make prominent appearances.
I stitched the first two stanzas of the song lyrics onto hand dyed organza (cursing myself for this brilliant idea very soon after I had started, but determined not to change my mind!) and overlaid that piece on top of the sun.
In the end, of course, the result doesn't really look very much like the inspirational picture.
But perhaps that was not my intention to begin with? I am not certain, how much of a replica I had intended, as there was no sun in the original picture... In any case I do hear those Beatles songs when I look at it, and what more can you want than to be triggered into inner music when looking at a piece of art!
Comments