Here is my finished piece for January - Admiration.It is based on a rangoli design from Mandana, Gujarat, India. From the book "Designs and Motifs from India" by Marty Noble.
A rangoli is a colourful design made on the floor near the entrance to a house to welcome guests. At Diwali, Hindus draw bright rangoli to encourage the goddess Lakshmi to enter their houses. Traditionally the floor painting is only done by women. Red sand and chalk powder are used to make the designs. They are also now found on block printed textiles.
This is my homage to the countless, nameless craftswomen in India who embroider our skirts, bags and cushion covers.
I am pleased that I kept to the colour scheme and have used a couple of TAST stitches from last year - pistil and arrowhead, with couching and beads. The background is fern green sheer over purple linen. It is 9x9 cms (3.5x3.5 inches)
I confess that this was to be the centrepiece in a larger piece - but life got in the way this month - and I have also signed up for Sharon B's Sumptuous Surfaces class (more in the next post) so this was as far as I got.
Still I am very pleased with the result and may use it as it is - or add it to the WISP pile - as part of my original design, when time permits!
I am looking forward to the February challenge.
10 comments:
What a lovely piece and I admire your concept.
You have done beautiful work, I like it very much!
this is beautiful - peaceful and dynamic at the same time
beautifully done. I l love asian embroidery, well any ethnic embroidery to be honest as it generally part of their lives and not hobby as we tend to do it.
Fantastic idea and lovely piece !
This is a beautiful piece, and a wonderful concept. I admire your skill, doing such beautiful work on such a small piece.
I look forward to seeing what you do in February!
"Admiration" is beautiful! Lovely bead work, too.
I love this motif and the sentiment behind your choosing it. I also won't complete my piece this month but hope to learn to scale my project down in the future.
This is a beautiful design and piece.
I'm looking forward to seeing your sumptuous surfaces work. I would love to do this class but am studying my Master of Education part time over the next two years instead.
I think it's great that your design inspiration is 'feral invaders'. As I drove home last night a fox crossed the road, no doubt hunting some poor native animal!!
Nice! I like the concept, too - but what I really like is the "braided" center circle (the green and purple) and your use of silver - good choice!
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