The Alchemist

Here we are then.

This piece was a complete indulgent confection. I wanted to make a flamingo for ages, but their non critically endangered status was preventing me. I realised this was silly, and also is anything truly non threatened in 2019? Something to think about. But here’s what I did anyway.

At this point I’m fully committed to portraiture again. Over the last few years I’ve developed a bit of a tool kit and felt a great pull to the sort of work I was making in 2015 with the Ugly Gods series.

I wanted to revel in glorious juicy colours and textures and sparkly bits. Maybe I was feeling a little burn out of the constant investigation into the harrowing stories of the war we’re all waging on the earth and her inhabitants. Still, like I say, I could achieve both.

I was using this gorgeous piece of space dyed cotton velvet as my base, and underpainted with felt. On this I started on the head with surface embroidery, defining the basic shapes.

Fun!

Quite honestly, pretty much my whole goal was to use all the most gorgeous pink beads and sequins that somehow don’t feature in crumbling brown spider tree habitats.

Interestingly I found this commitment to ‘just having fun with it’ very challenging. What kind of monster am I?

Head done, I moved on to the beak with a similar process.

Honestly the best colours.

The eye!

I think the most difficult thing for me was using these beads and sequins just *because I want to*, not because they actually describe a texture that’s really there.