Graphic Quilled Nature Landscape Picture - Swan Lake

Today's post is a graphic quilled, painting like, nature landscape picture of a lake with swans floating among the reeds.

I quilled this soon after I quilled my first graphic quilled nature scene , Tree & Water, but never got down to blogging it till now!!

I call it graphic quilling because I have used folded paper strips glued directly to the backing. When I create scenes with basic shapes I call it quilled landscapes.

The basic concept for my graphic art nature scenes are to use the 3mm strip to imitate the elements of nature. In gluing the elements I try to follow the contours of the object, just like pencil shading, so that the light and shadow created by the arrangement of the strips gives depth to the image.

I have seen many landscape quilled pictures where the basic shapes are glued to fill the shape like paintings without shading  or like the way cartoons are colored. Even though these look good,  I feel that a more realistic appearance can be achieved with the same effort, if the shapes are glued to follow the contours of the solid object being depicted. Those of you wishing to perfect the art should try out both methods to see for yourself.

If you notice, I have changed the direction of the feathers in various parts of the bird to try and get a feeling of depth. Even when using strips changing the direction or shaping the strip to portray the shape will make your project look better.

I have also tried using perspective ( shape change depending on eye level and distant objects appearing smaller) and  color (darker to represent depth) in this project.

I would love to know what you think.