Thursday, April 9, 2009

The Greek Girl Who Became a Boy






Hi Fellow Weavers,



(Although I am not sure I am a weaver yet!) Here is one my last two tapestries, actually I should say 3 because this is the 2nd version of this Greek Youth. I will not be sharing the first version!!He was done from a photo of a girl but thought (s)he looked more masculine than the photo. And the girl was so very pretty too. Oh, well. Reminds me of the poor baby in 1985 who suffered from the malfunctioning circumciser at Northside... I was pregnant at the time and prayed for a girl because of that story! Boy, girl, tapestry. I used a lazy line in the blue! Can you see it?

Here is the last one I have done using only one strand of wool. The Greek Youth used 2. I think I like one better, I have a hard time keeping more than 1 taut. I only had to take her head off once but am a little disappointed at the results. I though she would look fabulous but I find her a little boring. I am thinking of my next one, think I will crib some designs by Seguay (spelling?) from the New York Public Library website. If you haven't been there to see their digital image library, you need to go. It is wonderful. It was the souce for both of these people but no way would you be able to recongnize them.

http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/dgexplore.cfm?topic=all

Thanks Tommye, for your encouragement. You must be the best teacher ever. I know your college students will miss you!

Lauren

2 comments:

  1. These are amaazing, Lauren! You've done such a good job with the shading, making the portrait look so lifelike. And I don't think the second one is boring at all. All those angular lines draw the eye through the weaving and the red makes a wonderful contrast to the other subtler colors. You're definitely a weaver. And the lazy lines work well in the solid color areas.

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  2. Lauren,
    Wonderful work!! You're really showing technique improvement with each piece... and that's almost the only way to get that... work, work, work!

    These compositions are nice at the small scale. You know, you might also want to consider Japanese woodblock prints as a beginning point for designing. I love the graphic quality of those... and speaking of graphic quality, do you read graphic novels or comic books? Both the approaches to composition and the notan concepts found in many of the illustrative narrative works might be inspiring.

    Thanks, Lauren, for your thank you! I'm looking forward to re-retiring and tossing out the responsibilities of grading and the other "games" of academia. I truly love to teach people like y'all who are so eager to learn. Short spurts, then "touch ups" is my preferred way of sharing now.

    Keep it up and keep on posting!

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