Adri's Palette

One of the most exciting things in life is when you see one of your dreams come to life. And one of the scariest is bringing one of your dreams to life. I mean when you are creating something from a ready made pattern, someone has already tried and tested it. There is no room for error. You take the little piece of the puzzle, follow the directions and put them together. And you have your prize in your hand. But when you are doing it from scratch it is quite different. The path is not cut out from the jungle. You have the machete in your hand but you have to hack through all the mess. And the question remains: will it be a rooster or the Eiffel tower at the end? Oh, but the adrenalin! I debated a lot on the colors for the rooster, so I decided to take things slow. I took it section by section. I started with the head. I wanted it light, but colorful. Playful and happy. I definitely wanted some harmony with the French hen, so I looked at the color combinations in them. When I was finally confident with my colors only then did I start thinking about the rest of the body. What would match the light green and the orange? What are those areas that I want to highlight and show off? What are those that I don’t want to contradict with another part?

I already decided to have the wing of the rooster stand out and be more elegant then that of the French hen. I was thinking about bringing in some folk elements from my previous drawings and embroider it, but then had another idea. I once saw a very pretty needlebook cover design on Larissa Holland’s blog. As it had a similar feel to the design on the hen’s wings, but was more bejewelled I though it would be perfect. I absolutely love the end result. For the tail’s embroidery I took inspiration from nature. I was drawn to the idea of the ripened wheat bending its head in the warm summer breeze. However, I wanted a color that would contrast the mid green of the base, so did not want to go with plain beige. That is when I though of the cornflowers that grow among the wheat and how beautiful its color would show on the tail.

Well, the rooster is everything I imagined it would be! He is tall and manly (OK, in poultry world). I love the confident stance it has, how proudly it sports its beautiful wing. It trails and shows off its tail almost like a peacock. Its spurs are spotless and perky. There is just one thing that I am worried about. That its attitude is going to scare the hens away, because in that case all my efforts to get them a mate would have been in vain.

Well, you be the judge…