Embroidered Collage

Each image that I created for the altered calendar round robin is now collected into a gallery page.  Well, except for June, which my camera ate.  I enjoyed going over the pictures again as I resized each image, looking for trends, trying to see evidence of growth, and just remembering.

I primarily worked in spreads, instead of single pages, either having the two sides form one image or having them be related.  This appealed to my sense of visual presentation.  One of my favorite parts was working off of the calendar's image, incorporating it into the collage spread and using it as inspiration at the same time.

I think I did my best work in the summer - July through September.  My pages are layered and interesting, at least in my opinion, yet more unified than they had been earlier in the year.  I was pushing myself more then, trying for the best results.  The experience just felt like a long haul by the time I reached the last quarter so maybe that's why the pages, while I'm still pleased with them, just don't appeal to me as much overall.  Or maybe it's because many of the later pages are constructed from earlier works that I either wasn't going to finish or didn't have a home for.  I do still adore my peacock page.

It was a grand and worthwhile experience.  I did work I wouldn't have done otherwise.  But I would never have been able to do another one this year.  I still feel a bit burned out by it.  Maybe I'll do something similar again, maybe not, but I'll always have my own calendar come home to flip through and consider, what if...