You may or may not recall that last year I was inspired to work with some Tudor motifs following my visit to the splendid exhibition ‘Wolsey’s Angels‘ held at Christchurch Mansion in Ipswich. I was particularly taken with an oak fire surround with beautifully carved details that included a repeating pheasant motif which I stole and reworked for a scarf design.
Sometimes when I finish a scarf and steam it I am very pleased with the result, but this is not always so. As I’ve mentioned in the past the steaming process intensifies the colour, but it is not entirely predictable. When the scarf is finally washed and pressed I can properly appraise the results. And, I have to say I was very disappointed with this pink one.
The pale background did not deepen as much I thought it was going to during the steaming and consequently the balance between the heavy lines of the motif and the pale background was way off. Fortunately, having a very pale background has allowed plenty of scope to successfully develop a second, richer layer.
I added more darker lines to the central area and generally softened the whole design by adding pale greys and a mouse brown over the pale pink.
Adding more detail 
Motif finally looking a better fit
After steaming, washing and pressing the scarf was ready for another assessment. A little surprisingly it as turned out much better than I thought, but, rather annoyingly the tonal range has also turned out to be awkward to photograph satisfactorily. You can’t win them all.
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Agnes Ashe 
I like how you handled this. Sometimes in art I think balance among elements is more important than anything else. Not equality, but balance.
Yes I agree. Trouble with me is that it’s not always obvious when I am in the middle of painting. I guess like our endeavours we are all work in progress.
I was interested in how you solved thr various problems.
Thank you – though not sure I cracked the photos of this one.
I do find your creative processes – the planned and unplanned which inform the final result – to be really fascinating. Thanks for posts such as this one.
Thank you. I could do with less of the unplanned though just had to spend two weekends repainting my daughter’s bedroom as that went wildly wrong. Costly in both terms of money and time, but we’ve got there in the end.
Aaagh. I hope she was suitably grateful.
Fortunately this time yes (said with a sigh of relief).