American Kestrel

In the first semester of my senior year's illustration class, we were allowed to make self-directed projects. We had to state up front what our goal was — what did we want to try/learn/accomplish? My stated goal for this picture was atmospheric perspective. I'd never made a landscape before, so I wanted to see if I could do it in fabric.

That ended up being the biggest challenge I encountered while working on this picture. I ended up solving this problem using progressively lighter fabrics for the mountains and many layers of light blue tulle.

I had also originally designed a fence to come in from the left and disappear down in to the valley. I took it out after assembling the whole picture because I wasn't able to get the fence to disappear correctly (the fabric pieces just got too small), and I felt it ultimately broke up the composition.

Last but not least, the bird depicted in this fabric picture is my namesake, so it was fun to finally make a kestrel in fabric.