Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Only 3 months behind...

Sorry for the long wait, but finishing school and trying to put together ways to pay the bills have taken up a lot of time. So here's my submission for March.

This page is taken from the lines found on the Nazca plateau in Peru. These shapes laid out in the desert have been thought to be proof of intelligent aliens having visited our planet, but current archaeological research have come up with some very plausible explanations for how and why they were made. Recent discoveries of buried, intentionally destroyed artifacts links these sites with ritual tradition. The forms were easily created using basic observational methods to map out these very large animal and abstract forms, which are truly only visible from the air. The lines are most likely specially created footpaths which would have been walked by the ritual participants and would have had a similar purpose to the labyrinth form.

This particular form is known as the humming bird, and is part of the reason that I chose to use pinks, as their plumage is usually very brilliant and colourful. The other reason was that I wanted to do bright pinks!
;-)

Anyway, the initial progress was a little frustrating, for several reasons. First of all, I wasn't at home when I started the project, so I was stuck using whatever marker I could find, and it ended up being a lot darker than I wanted...



Also it was difficult to find a size of image that would both allow the path to be beadable, and to have the entire form on the page...

The other problem was that I chose to use a polyester felt as the substrate. It ended up being very flimsy, so I used an iron-on support fabric.



But once everything was sorted out, it became just a matter stitching the beads onto the page.

So here's the final result. It's not exactly how I pictured it, but when are they ever.

The footpath is laid out in the silvery Delicas.



Now what do I do for April, May and June?!?

9 comments:

Robbie said...

Very, very nice piece!!! Love the lines in this piece!!

Carol Creech said...

I really like this!! I agree with Robbie - great lines and motion in this piece. And the colors work so well together. Beautiful!

robin michelle said...

This is so pretty! I love the colors in it also!

Cyndi L said...

How gorgeous it turned out! Some things are just worth waiting for :-)

beadbabe49 said...

lovely piece and it will look wonderful along with the earlier two...are they going to be a book or individually framed?

Anonymous said...

Beautiful flow and so lovely!!!!

Lois2037 said...

When I first saw this, and before I read the blog, I thought it reminded me of the hummingbird on the Nazca Plateau. Very lovely!

Magpie Sue said...

They never do turn out quite the way we imagine they will, do they? This is a beautiful piece though; you done good!

Robin said...

How exciting! I love the footpath/history/ritual aspect of this piece and I can easily "see" the hummingbird flying in the direction of the upper left corner. It's super!!!!!

Robin A.