Pelican on Pier - Design and Pattern

I thought I'd use this post to show how I made the pattern for this art quilt once I had the design drawn. As mentioned in my previous post, the pelican was based on a photo of a juvenile pelican that I saw on Balboa Pier.

This is the photo that I took of the juvenile pelican. I copied the photo in black and white and enlarged it on copy paper. Black and white allows you to see the major shapes more easily. I  wanted to come up with a line drawing of the pelican, and using an enlarged photo makes that easier.

The drawing below shows the pelican line drawing. I added a little "heft" to the size of the pelican because I wanted it to look like a robust healthy bird, and I thought the juvenile (above) still looked a little lean. I focused on the primary lines that define the shapes of the bird parts. The only area that required more detail was the wing. I have made bird art quilts before and the ones I made with lots of individual feathers looks much better to me. It's a little tedious, but worth it in the end.

After you get the line drawing made, you enlarge the drawing to your finished size. I do this at my local FedEx Office store. I'm on good terms with the large format printer and need no help to get my enlargements done.

Pattern pieces are easily made by taking your enlarged drawing, laying freezer paper over it and drawing around the lines. Then cut out the pieces. Be sure to label your enlarged drawing shapes and your corresponding freezer paper pieces.Here are some of my wing and tail feather pieces.

Here are my larger wing and tail background shapes.

My design also includes palm trees in the background. I considered putting in beach apartments but they looked too busy in my initial sketches. I had palm tree pattern pieces from a previous art quilt and was able to reuse those. Here are my reused palms patterns.

So its fairly simple: take a photo, trace a line drawing, draw the shapes on freezer paper and cut them out.

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