Hiding from the heat

It has been another few days of high temperatures.  My studio is facing east so I don't do much in there during the morning.  However, the sun moves away in the afternoon and I have been able to hide in there the last few days. Seeing it hasn't been humid, the evaporative cooling has worked well.

I have been working on a small tapestry for an online group exhibition. I was undecided how to orient my picture for weaving. It is of one of my favourite topics - Darebin Parklands.

Aside:  I have often wondered where the word Darebin comes from.  I visited the Darebin Council art exhibition at Bundoora Homestead (another good thing to do on a hot day) and came across one work that said that Darebin is derived from the aboriginal word Daraben, meaning 'swallow bird'. That's if I have remembered his artist's statement correctly.

Anyway, I decided that the tree trunks were more horizontal than the shadows and am weaving it sideways.

Now I am not so sure that was a good idea, the shadows on the path are turning out to be tricky!  But I've done so much now that I'm not changing my mind - I'll just keep going.  There is some artistic licence there.  I actually manipulated the photo in Photoshop, to make it less realistic, in the hopes that I wouldn't get too caught up in all the detail.  It has worked to some extent but I am still bothered by the loss of detail.  It is only going to be 20cm high as that is one of the restrictions of the exhibition. 

It is rather hard to get up much enthusiasm when the days - and NIGHTS - are so hot but I'll try.  We did have a cool change today, so I'll try to get a good night's sleep and see if I can get it finished before it heats up again.