Colourblast

I know, I know, I've been remiss in not updating the blog...  I went on holidays this summer, and real life took a little more time than I wanted it to.  But I'm back!

So--back to business it is!

In October of 2011, while at another one of the many innumerable scout camps I attend (yes, it's hyperbole, but it feels that way sometimes), I had brought some of my work with me, because I wanted to pick a more knowledgeable friend than I's brain (I hope that statement made sense) about the colour scheme for a project I was planning on working on.  Unfortunately, the colour scheme was too complicated for me at that point, so I decided to select another design, and proceeded to create that one (This turned out to be Switcheroo).

As it would happen, one of my friends either asked me to make one, or I volunteered to make one, or a bit of both.  She said that she'd be happy with whatever I create, so I felt free to select a design from a region that I hadn't attempted before (incidentally, this happened to be a different village, from the same region as the original Switcheroo was supposed to be.  Funny, that).  In an attempt to "streamline" my production methods, I started working on two projects concurrently, the other one being Embroidery.

Now, and I ascribe this to be 100% part of the learning curve, it happened that one of the background textiles for these two concurrent projects was 'unbleached linen', the other 'white felt'.  For some reason, I decided to dye both sheets.  The usual tea-dye process.  Quite simple, and a relatively easy way to get rid of old tea bags that won't be drunk (because, well, they're bagged tea, not loose leaf.  But that's another topic entirely).  Both sheets were slightly dyed, a coat or two, and then I put this one aside, to concentrate on Embroidery, which was due considerably sooner.  Once that was done, it was back to this, and this is where the problems started...

One thing that I've been learning (and I'm still learning, much to my dismay, at times), is to really, really, REALLY pay close attention to the colour scheme, and inspect it carefully.  Somehow, I looked at it, saw that it was more or less a mirror-image design, easy as pie.  So I started colouring it; I finished the central flower, and thought that it looked quite odd with what I presumed to be a central flower of red, and an outer flower of differing colours, but, red again.  It was only when I decided to take a longer look at the scheme that I realized that, while indeed, the inner flower on the two outer flowers were of one colour, the central flower was the same, inside and out, separated only by a thin thread of green.  Oops.  I tried erasing the inner ring of red, but wouldn't you know it, those darn artist coloured pencils are quite difficult to erase!  And I didn't want to start problem-solving on the project ("Can I erase more?  No.  Can I scrape off the layer of colour?  Yes, but now the sheet's uneven."), so, I was left with one solution:  restart.  Which I did.

Oops.

 This time around, due to time constraints, I didn't dye the sheet.  Which means that of the two sheets that were dyed (remember Embroidery?), the one that shouldn't have been dyed was, and the one that should have been, now wasn't.  Odd, that.  Colouring went well--as long as I had a scheme to follow.  Then, suddenly, the colour indications stopped (somewhere around the middle of the design, meaning that for the right side, I was on my own, as I was for the birds, and the central stitching).  Well, not quite.  The central "wave" of stitching had the colours indicated, but not where each colour should start and stop.  But, I seem to have figured out well enough on my own.
 

Much better.

Once that was done, all that was left was the writing.  I'd managed to find a greeting I liked, so that was no problem.

Now, if you've been reading past posts, you'll have noticed that there's always something I'm dissatisfied with in my projects; something that I may have been satisfied with at the beginning, but with distance, I shake my head at:  and we're now at that point.

I'm not dissatisfied with the choice of text.  I'm dissatisfied with how I chose to present it.

I have a marked preference for medieval scripts (carolingian, gothic, and uncials, mainly), and this time around I chose to use an insular minuscule.  Only, for some odd reason, I decided I would incorporate an aspect of another post-uncial minuscule (Luxeuil minuscule):  ligatures.  And this took away from the legibility of the text.  Insular minuscule is not a ligatured script, and yet I insisted on combining 'E' with its following letters" 'z', 'n', etc.  But the problem is most marked with the word "szeretet" ("love"), which looks more like "SzErEcEc".  I also should have reduced the size of the 'e''s and 's''s.  They look odd being so large when everything else is small (and especially so in the middle of a word!)

Another project done, another lesson learned, and more knowledge as to how to accomplish the perfection I so seek in calligraphy...