Bat Skeleton, Testing ideas, (u1)

While I was making my bat pillow last week, I noticed a super sweet skeleton line on the backside of the fabric. The more I looked at it, the more it reminded me of one of those medical drawings of skeletons. I thought it would be pretty sweet to embroider one and thus - a new project begins.

Now, my secret is out - I'm totally project ADHD. I'm forever switching from one project to the next and back around to the first again. Q*bert is not forgotten, just on hold until I'm inspired by it again or get tired of looking at it.

Back to the bat - I started with a web search. I was originally looking at skeletons pinned flat with the body in the middle and two wing spread on either side. While cool and a good idea, I wanted something a little more dynamic. I came across an image on a website that had the bats posed in a flying position. Win! Much better idea and much more interesting to look at as a wall hanging.

Bat Skeleton. Articulated & Mounted by Ryan Matthew. Photo by Sergio Royzen.

I intend for my project to finish at 8x10. I took the image and did a little tinkering in photoshop to see if I was even going to like the idea. I really wish I had saved that image before my PC rebooted. I went ahead and mocked up the background, framing, and aging. I guess I liked it because I continued on.

One thing I didnt love was the overall shape of the bat. I found a alternate version of the flying bat, resized and printed it and I was ready to get started.

Here is all printed up. I used tracing paper over the image of the bat to trace on lines that I thought should be stitch in. Then I used my "frame" (a scrap book paper with an 8x10 opening cut out and tried it over the tracing.

This image was of a bat flying away. I wasn't able to create that feeling without shading. It just kind of looked like a broken bat flying to nowhere. I added the scientific name for the brown bat (our local bats) on the bottom and immediately regretted it.  It really weighted the bottom of the frame in an uncomfortable way.

I tried again, reverting to the original bat skeleton and put the words on top:

Ahhh.. much better. I thought maybe the words were a little too much, but I'm bearing in mind the weight of the lines on the bottom are going to be much heavier than the top half. I think it is important to add something to balance it out. I can always change my mind again later!

I'm planning on putting it on linen and doing a little distressing before it gets started. It's funny - I thought this project was going to be a good "carry around" project. There's really going to be a lot more prep and up front work than I guessed. Yay for surprises!