Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Flight of Dragons

Finally finished the challenge for this month. With the 6" x 12" size I have been limiting myself to, I could only do a sort of half radial. I started with the dragons, thinking of a similar thing to the British Red Arrows flight team.

I decided to use the elements for the colours of nature. But I also included a black and white dragon which I am calling the element of Word. So, from right to left I have water, fire, word, earth, sky. They are all made from hand dyed silks, except the black and white one, which is from a black and white silk tie. They all have a ball of fire in front of them. This is similar to the oriental dragons chasing a pearl. But you can decide if they are chasing it or if it comes from them. Because I fused the dragons on, the thin silk they are made of actually darkened a bit. If I made something similar larger, I would use brighter colours for the dragons. At the end, I tried to draw out the brighter colours a bit with a yellow border that has a bit of green paintstick highlights.

The dragons on their own were not enough, so it sat a while. Finally, after much consideration, I decided to do clouds. I realised the best way would be to stitch synthetic organza and then cut it back with the soldering iron.

This piece is really something I think has been a good trial for attempting to do in a larger size at sometime. It would definitely work better if I didn't have to cram it into a small area.

1 comment:

Carole said...

I really like how you did the clouds Sandy.. I like to work with organza but have never tried anything AFTER it has been sewn down. Very interesting...