Friday, August 7, 2015

Pelican on Pier - Where the Idea Came From....



This is my "Pelican on Pier" fiber art piece that I made for the Beyond the Edge Boundless Exhibit. It is 18" wide by 36" high and mounted on a stretched canvas.  The tail and part of the head/beak extend beyond the canvas. I love the presentation on the canvas.

Pelicans are such interesting creatures to look at, they remind me of pterodactyl dinosaurs. Making a pelican art piece has been on my artwork bucket list for a while, so I'm glad to get this item checked off!

The inspiration for this piece came from a young pelican on the Balboa pier.




My husband and I were taking a walk before getting lunch at a local restaurant and this guy was just sitting on the pier, scanning the water for his lunch. He kept one eye on the water and one eye on the people on the pier.  I was surprised at how seemingly comfortable he was with people nearby, and all the photos I could snap of him without him flying away. So his shape and details became my drawing.

The colors I used were very different from this young pelican's coloration. I found his coloring a bit drab and not in my favorite color scheme. I had some other photos of pelicans and I liked the shading in some of the adult pelicans, so I used that as a starting point. I don't really try to mimic "real life" coloring for the most part. I prefer making things interesting in colors I like.




This is a pretty rough sketch, but here is the color plan that I started with for this piece.



Next steps are cutting patterns pieces for it. That will be my next post. Thanks for visiting my blog!

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