The Accidental Embroiderer

Andalucian Birds

We spent some time in Andalucia a couple of years ago and I really liked the painted tiles that were used to decorate a lot of the houses, with simple, primitive pictures of birds and leaves and pomegranate fruits. 

Andbird2
One of the bird tiles on the wall of the house where we stayed

When we were back in the UK I did some drawings of some tiles we had seen in the house of friends, digitised and stitched them and put them together into a panel which I gave to our hosts as a thank-you present. The birds on the tiles are quite crude and primitive, but they have a lot of vitality which they'd probably lose if they were more sophisticated. The only colours used in the tiles are cobalt blue and an emerald green, and although I got a bit impatient at having to work with such a  limited palette, it did help to make the group of birds look as if they belonged together. There wasn't much originality in this project, because I mostly just copied the drawings on the tiles and didn't invent any new bird designs. However it was a good exercise for me because it forced me to look at the shapes of birds in a new way, and I'm mulling over some ideas for taking these simple designs a step further

Andpanel
The Andalucian bird panel

1 thought on “Andalucian Birds

  1. Hello Mia! I’m Jackie, Cherri’s friend in Florida…the one who loves your “chickens”. But it’s not just your chickens, I love everything that you design, digitize, etc. You are such an inspiration to us Florida gals. Please continue to keep up the good work and keep my friend Cherri at her sewing machine!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *