Blog 3 Nesting

 

Blog 3 Nesting

I have considered the activity of the blackbird .  It built and lined its nest. Laid eggs and nurtured the babies until they fledged.  Throughout this time the bird cleans and replenishes the interior 'furnishings'. The nest is then abandoned.

 

A slow careful drawing of a blackbird’s nest enabled the structure and placement of the building materials to be discerned. Observation of the nest allowed the identification of the actual materials. These appeared to be; sticks of varying length and width, moss, feathers, grass leaves and mud. The nest was obviously built with care. The sticks were carefully woven together. Observations of old nests showed that the birds had invariably built the nest on supporting branches of trees. This nest provided a secure, warm habitat in which to lay eggs and raise young.

 

I investigated the structure of the nest further. I gathered sticks and leaf litter from the garden and tried to identify those twigs that could be woven.

During further investigation using jute to hold the twigs together in a structured way, I noticed how a closed structure could be made quite quickly. The woven jute was quite firm. 

Nest Materials 

Revisiting the construction of the nest I considered what it was made from moss, mud, feathers, twigs and leaves.

Using the colours and yarn from the palette above, a stitched piece was made.

I liked the way the textured yarn stood proud of the paper creating shadows.

Feathers

Feathers were found in the nest and I wanted to explore their structure and shape. Gelli prints and ghost prints were made and using the feathers themselves to mark make. The colours chosen to print were blues, and yellows which mixed to make the greens. The veins overlapped forming meshes. The white feathers can be furthered explored with other markings and/or stitching.

I wondered what could be seen from the inside of the nest looking out. From the outside of the nests one can usually only see the outer structure of twigs and yet there was a soft interior.

Was this hidden softness something for further exploration?

Structure

Thinking about the structure of the nest and the way in which the materials overlapped I next considered packaging  material. Particularly interesting are how the paper mesh can be distorted by stretching. It takes on an organic form as it responds to the pressures applied by using various anchor points. The secondary images created by the shadows give a sense of depth shape.

This view of the packaging is very reminiscent of the tree bark. The surface texture has an abstract quality to it. The texture is reflected in the soft shadows. Tree bark would merit further investigation.