IF: Sky

IT IS FINISHED!! Sorry for the loud capitalization, but this piece is finally done and since it can fit into the Illustration Friday theme of "sky", I present it to the world and there are a lot of butterflies in that there sky!!

If you know me at all, you know I hate when the first thing someone asks about my work is how long it took to make. I want people to be greatly moved by the image, be in awe of it's message, not how long it took to stitch, saying that........

I named the piece "Migration in Moab" but I seriously considered titling it "@#$#$@#$ butterflies" insert your most severe cuss word. I was stitching butterflies for over one year, yup, you read right, over one year of small, medium or large butterflies. I refused to count the numbers of butterflies, but Daughter #2 did and she stopped counting at like 168 with still more to go. The piece is like 23 inches by 32 inches, to get a feel for how big that is, here it is laid out with the pattern on my drafting table..

 

Don't ask me why I decided to make such a huge collage, I can't remember anymore. I think I was looking towards gallery work and wanted to see if I could make something that could own the wall when someone walked into a gallery. It owns the wall, I'm not sure where I am going to put it, I have already entered it in a juried show and shown it to a magazine art director, was thinking of sending it to a few festivals that happen in Moab, Utah as possible festival posters, but don't think I have the heart to try and sell it the actual piece.
Not just that there is a lot of time in it, but more because the model is Daughter #1 ( chronological age, not  in importance). I finished the piece just after she went off to college....

 

 

 

The butterflies were actually an after thought. I had the whole thing done by fall of last year, but thought it needed something. Then we went to a lecture at our cultural center on the migration of monarch butterflies and found out that the Four Corners was in their migration path and the two ideas merged together. Put some butterflies on it, not quite right yet, put some more on, set it aside and then realized it needed a whole another arch per say of butterflies, so started overlapping butterflies on top of butterflies....

So now it is done and on it's way to the framers, I think. The two butterflies on the black are actually 3D butterflies, like they have escaped the picture and when it comes back from the framer, I am going to attach a butterfly to the outside of the frame, if I can bring myself to stitch one more ##@$@#$ butterfly!!