Cynthia St. Charles Store

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Spring Chickadees - Work in Progress


This piece is a work in progress that has been on my design wall in various forms for about a month. Yesterday, I finally stitched the blocks together and added a border. The border fabric was hand painted and hand printed - same fabric I used for the twigs on each block. This morning, I added a few chickadees.

To my eye, the birds bring it to life. I am still in a quandary over the monotony of the palate, but since my objective is to express the joy I feel when new green leaves appear after a long brown and white winter - I feel it has to be as it is. The size is now about 45 x 54".
Any thoughts?

8 comments:

Ruth said...

I don't think the palate is monotonous. I really like it and it looks just like spring.

Mary Ann Littlejohn said...

The chickadees are special. I can almost see them hopping from limb to limb

Beverly said...

I agree with both Ruth an Mary Ann- the colors sing, and remind me of spring. Love that shade of yellow-green!

Anonymous said...

It's gorgeous!! Love the colors of your painting.

Anonymous said...

Your little quilt is very cheerful, but I feel you are torn between winter (chickadees) and bull blown summer (such a huge quantity of strong greens). To me, spring is the bare branches of winter with various sizes of green buds peeping through, a few chickadees and maybe one or two of the birds we look for to show that spring is indeed coming....spring is a time of change and hope for future growth. I can't figure out how to sign this....so will sign here as Jan

Cynthia St Charles said...

Thanks so much for all the comments. It is good to have the perspective of someone living in a warmer climate - chickadees are with us in the summer as well as the spring. That is why I was able to get such a good image of them for this piece (my photo of a chickadee converted to a screen print).

Anonymous said...

Just checked your Dec 7 posting. WOW! Spectacular use of colour. I love your work!!!
I checked about the chickadees and they are around in the summer but seem to spend more time higher up and only come down to our area (300feet above sea level) in the winter when food is not so plentiful....I'm on B.C. coast....Jan

Dahn said...

I love your work and I love your blog. It is one of the 2 I read every week. You make it all look so easy. And I LOVE these chickadees.

The repeating colours (green, green green) are symbolic of sound these birds make(chickadee-dee-dee).

OK that was weird, but thats how I see it. I love these birds too...

Dahn