Thinking of Designs

Even as the smaller Peacock Roundel develops, the large Victorian mirror piece is playing around the edges of my mind.  After working up and discarding a few designs, its doing me a lot of good to be at a distance from it and working on something akin to it but not connected.  This is giving me some perspective and some space for my subconscious to fiddle with details.  I took the cardboard backing out of the frame to use as a template. There were a lot of directions I could go, but it wasn't until a friend commented on one of my Pinterest pins that I made a leap about what to do with that odd sort of squashy top arch.  It was then I made the connection between the late Victorian time period and Art Nouveau.  Suddenly the arch made sense.  Now I have gone haring off after Alfonse Mucha and Gisbert Combaz.  Most people know Mucha's graceful, sinuous women and flowers - very distinctive.  And there's that arch again.

And the clear simple composition and mass dynamics of Gisbert Combaz fit exactly with this technique and the visual impact I want it to have. 

Mix it up with a little of Bilibin's Firebird,

an Art Deco book cover 

and colors from Medieval Persian mosaics,

and perhaps a Palekh box or two

I think I have a plan in sight......