Still working

My apologises for still not having posted my piece. I drew the design just before we went away, but three weeks touring in a 50 year old car round Romania (not to mention getting there and back) in a heatwave has knocked the stuffing out of me. My studio is also one of the hottest rooms in the house, so until the UK heatwave diminshes I'm avoiding the room!! I will get my piece done soon(ish) - promise. Linda F

The Islamic Museum of Art

 I was inspired by the Islamic Museum of Art on a man-made island in Doha, Qatar, designed by the 91-year-old I.M. Pei - whose work on the glass pyramid in the Louvre, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Bank of China Building in Hong Kong have long been world-famous. As one of the most successful architects of the 20th century, I.M. Pei says that the Islamic Museum of Art will be his last major cultural building.

I.M. Pei said if we say we have found the core of Islamic architecture, shouldn't it be located in the desert, with a solemn and simple design and sunlight to revive the form?

This is also the main point of my work!

At the beginning, I chose the colors commonly seen in the desert as the background, and the theme was to use different colors of lines to present the simplicity of the building and the changes of light and shadow in a pressed cotton way. However, due to the lack of threads, I couldn't present the feeling I wanted...

After a long time of trouble, I suddenly had an idea and used the color pen on the table to trace the appearance of the building, and found that it worked well!

I was a bit dissatisfied with the result that I couldn't imagine at the beginning, but I still stick to my initial beliefs - simplicity, light and shadow changes.

 

   Momo

Alhambra Doorway

 

   The subject for one of the modules of my ill-fated City and Guilds patchwork was  'floors, walls, windows and doors'.  I have never been to the Alhambra in Grenada, but was fascinated by the architecture of the building, so the next best option was borrowing a book from the library for the drawings of various architectural features of which  this doorway was one.

   One of the exercises that I had to do led to this collage, which I have thought about using for a design, but have never got round to. This challenge was the chance to use it.

    I found some lovely handprinted Indian block print fabrics and used those to to represent the carved details round the doorway, making another mock-up of the design at half size using photocopies of the fabrics, so that I could be sure that the designs fitted. I didn't have large amounts of the fabrics and was worried about making a mistake when fussy cutting them.

   The drawing represents the Court of the Myrtles, but I don't know whether the original doorway leads to it. I used inktense to colour the drawing.