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Monday, December 14, 2009

Drawing inspiration from reality

In my last post, I expressed my frustration with the small, even blocks in the background of Cinders. I thought that they should be more irregular, more in keeping with the actual construction of a medieval castle or manor house.

Edy commented, "Why not change the bricks into stones...a bit larger and not so regular...sort of like a stone wall? Just a suggestion, not that I'm one who should second guess Marion."

(Actually, based on the couple of classes I've had with Marion, I think she wouldn't mind being second-guessed. She, like most great teachers, encourages students to make a design their own.)

Regardless, I was already thinking along the same lines as Edy. Rather than potentially adding something more inauthentic, though, I turned to the internet. I learned that medieval construction did actually involve shaping roughly rectangular blocks out of rock, so I used Google Images to get some visual inspiration. Surprisingly, I found plenty of construction with small blocks, but rarely were these as evenly spaced as on the original Cinders.

Two images in particular helped me decide how to "build" the wall behind Cinderella. This photo shows that the blocks were often of similar heights, but surprisingly long blocks were interspersed with much shorter blocks. The front of this manor shows similar dissimilarities between blocks, and also shows that each row of blocks might be a different height than neighboring rows.

With the exception of the upper right corner, where I'm still ripping out the little blocks, I've applied these lessons to Cinders. After the upper right corner is done, I'll reevaluate to see if I need to fill in any of the blank areas.


I like the new look much better. Isn't it wonderful that we can do small research projects like this with a minimum of time thanks to the internet?

What about you?  Have you made changes to a project (or even designed your own project) based on images found online? How did it turn out?

7 comments:

Ginny B said...

Much, much better! Transports us immediately back to medieval times!

The Chilly Hollow Needlepoint Adventure said...

Clever way of handling the problem, Jeanne. I think it looks great. I often use photos I find on Flickr.com to figure out how to stitch something on painted canvases. No reason the same primciple won't work on counted thread projects. I am just very heavily grounded in how things look in real life and like to mimic that. Helps me figure out which stitch to use, actually.

Donna said...

Brava! Good decision.

Edy said...

That's sort of what I meant!

Unknown said...

This is beautiful!

Jeanne said...

Thanks everyone!

And Edy, I guess I should have clarified. There are many types of stone walls - some with round stones, some with long stones like this, some with a mix. I checked online just to see what type of stone wall to build. Your idea was spot on! Thanks!

MeganH said...

This looks good.
So is it finished now?
Personally, I don't think it needs any more stones.