Flying the nest

Inspiration:  The flight of birds is so effortless, but I thought of depicting the tentative efforts of a young bird that has just left the nest, and perhaps that flight needs more effort.

I wanted to continue with my underlying theme of trees for the Flight challenge, and decided to use the tree in which a bird’s nest could be situated. From that nest, I wanted to depict the efforts of a young bird trying out his wings and learning to fly. I used a picture that illustrated the feeling of a mother bird coaxing her offspring to fly, and translated that into fabric.

I used hand-dyed fabric for the birds, cut to shape and further coloured with Inktense pencils, then hand stitched to add the shading and textures of the plumage. These were appliqued to a space dyed fabric background that had grey fabric heavily machined into place to form the tree branches. I used acrylic paint and a commercial fancy feather shaped stamp to represent the leaves of the tree. I hand stitched the details in the leaves, using both toning and contrasting  threads to give some depth to the background. I also hand-stitched some darker, finer branch shapes to suggest other trees. I hope that the shading of the background suggests the baby bird emerging from relative darkness into the light.

Detail views: