Bald Eagles
Dimensions: 27” x 40” | Medium: Fabric and Dye | Pieces: over 700
First Edition For Sale at John Zaccheo Gallery | Other Availability
This is another one of my fabric paintings that I designed based on an emotion. For this picture, my only objective was to convey a feeling of “majesty.” The composition, my choices of color, light, movement, and even the size of the image itself, all were designed to bring a stunning, awe-inspiring feeling to the viewer.
Something about this subject really hit a chord with me when I was working on it. I found myself voluntarily waking up at 4:00AM to get started and then cut, trace, and assemble pieces of fabric until 9:00-10:00PM. I loved every minute I spent at my drafting table working out which pieces go on top and what colors would look best where.
It ended up being a very good thing that I was so dedicated to this piece, because, in what seems to be my normal M.O., I was pushing a deadline. Seven days after I started this picture I had to fly back down to Florida to finish my last semester of college. I worked literally up to the last minute before I had to leave because I ran into some trouble trying to figure out what to do for a background. The rest of the picture was almost entirely assembled, but I had no fabric that was going to work for the sky. Absolutely none. So the morning I had to leave, I woke up even earlier than usual to try and figure out if I could use dye to make a convincing blue sky. This was the first time I had ever used dye in a fabric painting. Fortunately, the dye created a spectacular early-morning sunrise sky. If it hadn’t, the entire picture would have gone with me to Florida in pieces.
Another little fun fact about this piece is the light pink fabric in the clouds near the sunrise in the bottom left corner is actually from a shirt of my mom’s that she had been going to give to GoodWill. It can be seen quite clearly in the second detail image.