This Is Where Love Resides, or Flying Girl Blessing in the Branches

This Is Where Love Resides, or Flying Girl Blessing in the Branches
cotton, felt, embroidery floss, polyfill, beads, paper, acrylic paint, acrylic gel medium

Here she is. This is the finished sneak peak I showed you yesterday.

She is a stuffed flying girl, a mobile, I suppose.
This is Where Love Resides, or Flying Girl Blessings in the Branches

Here is the whole of her, from the top of her cotton thread, to the felt birdie, to the million times worked on girl to the paper banner that was not changed from the original.
Here is the original. Well one side of her, because I didn't like her very much and she wouldn't fly straight, having wonky fiber fill and arms that kept flopping and bending. The other side was embroidered with branches in silver and black and appliqued with a felt heart and leaf. So you see... I kept the inspiration in the piece, I just painted over everything else.

First of all I didn't like the color. It just didn't feel right to me. Second of all, there were problems with the sewing. It was at this point that I gave up making the tiny dolls out of cotton and just went to straight felt, where I didn't have to turn delicate arms and get that head caught in the spindly neck. SOOO frustrating. Oh yeah, and did I mention the wonky not flying straight and floppy arms? Ugh.

However, I still had this Flying Girl, and there was something about her I liked, not to mention all the work I put into her. And I did want to try painting on fabric, if you remember.

So one day I just stopped stalling and took out the long neglected paints and gave it a shot.

I was surprised to find that this project felt very familiar. Painting the doll wasn't that different from painting on paper, honestly. Yes it's three dimensional, but I found myself doing the same techniques on fabric as I do on paper. I guess when you find something that feels right, it keeps popping up. Like the layering of colors. I find I am layering colors whether it's felt or paint.

After layering the blues and whites and creams, and adding the branches, shifting the colors around a bit, I finally felt satisfied.

I think this experimentation of mine might lead somewhere.

This is why I love taking something old and turning it into something new and unknown. Your stakes are low, because the original wasn't what you wanted, but the payouts are potentially limitless.

What are some things that you have given up on that you could take up anew? Look at them without all the attachment and create something potentially awesome.