An experiment in layers

Before the Walls of Rome 8inx 10in
This weekend, I finished a challenge for Design Bytes Down Under that I've been playing around with for a few weeks. It's called Before the Walls of Rome and it's based on photos we took of the ancient walls surrounding Rome. It always intrigues me that so much history has taken place there. Enemies have camped before the walls of Rome from the late Roman Republic right through until gunpowder made city walls redundant. The images of the walls taken from various stages of Roman history are superimposed over each other, with traces of the past showing through. I wanted to work with sheers, and see how I could suggest shapes while playing with the layers. I'm not 100% happy with it but it's an idea I think I'll want to revisit.

On to the next thing

I still have a little housekeeping to do but I'm ready to start another project. The Design Bytes Down Under challenge for this month is Urban Environment. I had great plans to take my camera for a walk, as I haven't done that for a while, but time is passing and I will lose part of the last week of the month to the Craft and Quilt Fair at Darling Harbour. So I decided to work from existing photos. My initial notes for this theme focused on boundaries, borders, where things meet other things in the urban landscape. I found these great photos we took in Rome, of the ancient city walls. I love the massiveness of them, but also that, as in many modern cities, these walls are now in the middle of the city, as the boundaries have changed and the value of such defences has vanished.

I want to make a piece based on these images, with overlapping and partly transparent shapes. Well, that's my plan....