Entry time!

It is time NOW to send in my entry to ATA's unjuried small tapestry exhibit. I have had a piece in each of those exhibits, except for the first one. I love the exhibit, with small tapestries from total beginning weavers hanging next to the pieces from some of our mentors and teachers.

My problem this time is, not only do I not have a tapestry done to enter, I don't even have one begun. Not even designed. So, this morning I am working a bit on an idea, so I can at least submit a title on my entry form. And that will make me commit to a design. Once that is done, I will warp my small loom and get weaving, because the tapestry itself is due in March!

OK, I admit it; I am a procrastinator. I'm not usually quite this bad, though. I have just been overly busy lately.

So. Here are my thoughts for this small tapestry:  I almost always do an 8x10 format. The size limit is 10x10. My daughter-in-law sent me the photo above of her chickens, wanting to come into the warm house on a snowy day. I love the photo, and she gave me her permission to work with it. Obviously, there is too much detail in the image for a small tapestry.

So, I deleted a lot of the background, and cropped it to this 8x10 portrait oriented image.

Then I cropped it in landscape orientation.

And finally, I tried it as a square 10x10" image, which I think I prefer, of the three.

I like doing detail, and I have done some VERY detailed small tapestries for this exhibit, such as the one I did of our last dog, Wooster. The one I did for the last one of these exhibits is the self portrait with a camera. I have it as the featured post on the sidebar (a new feature I have begun recently, putting related past posts there for you to see.)

Anyway, weaving this as a 10x10 tapestry would require a lot of small detail, 'fiddly' work, at a finer sett than I might otherwise work at. I would, of course, simplify the image a bit more - maybe even do a painting of that size to work from, which helps me simplify. But that also adds work time. My other impulse is to weave something quick, and non-detailed, such as working from the sketch I did yesterday in my sketchbook:

It is simple and expressive, and would weave very quickly. But, as it would have a very different title than the chicken image would, I need to make a decision quickly. The entry is due by the end of this month. (By the way, you can enter here, and my tapestry is the image on that page!) Time. That may be the deciding factor. That, and the fact that I also have a piece on my studio loom needing to be completed.

What do you think?