Lets indulge the child in us and create whimsical images.
We discussed the images and how to create them after first making a ‘reminder’ list. Write down the things you see. Create them as you see them, not as others do. This is your design.
My list was the grass blowing in the breeze, Elephants, patterns, Zebras, Lions and hippos.
The trees with the weaver bird nest, the river and the texture.
So today I share some of the images I have to choose from and besides, this is part of the class we have undertaken during the tour.
It was to be the most perfect morning for a balloon ride, but we didn’t know that until an hour into our adventure. 5. 30 am was our pick up time and we were enclosed in a huge blanket of darkness. We rumbled over rough terrain, headlights eerily piercing the darkness, to finally arrive at the balloon launch site just as the sun began to appear.
So today I share my images. Of course I took hundreds more, but this is a small selection.
I studied textures yesterday. Fur, skin and color
It’s just a 45 minute flight from Nairobi and it was quite smooth. I was sitting behind the pilots, a young Kenyan man and Woman and got a bird’s eye view of the controls. It was certainly a unique trip, specially the in service. The pilot passed a bowl of mints in a plastic container back along the seats stating quite proudly, “in service snacks” and the landing was equally exciting as we wheeled over the dry brown countryside, past herds of elephants and zebras.
Small children in neatly pressed school uniforms stood behind the rope barrier. There was an occasional trumpet in the distance and then they came, 15 baby elephants, who had been rescued from certain death. Some ran, their trunks waving in the air. Some had obvious injuries, now healed and some just needed to be coaxed by their handlers.
I loved the plain pieces of embossed cotton, that had been heavily waxed. My mind was racing overtime to design something to use it in. I loved a deep brown that looked like leather. It was waxed to a high sheen and I image it would be wonderful for raw edge appliqué. But I didn’t buy it. Once again, I have so many things banked up to do after the Bayeux. I need to be realistic. When I do need it. I know where to buy it.!
Last week when I took my friends to the flower and fabric market it was teaming with rain, so I went back today to take photos for them.
“It is absurd for a man to kill an elephant. It is not brutal, it is not
heroic, and certainly it is not easy; it is just one of those preposterous
things that men do like putting a dam across a great river, one tenth of
whose volume could engulf the whole of mankind without disturbing the
domestic life of a single catfish.â€
― Beryl Markham, West with the Night
This is an extremely difficult art installation to describe, so I let the images do the talking.
