I was inspired by this post to complete the tapestry assignment.  This is essentially an exercise in minimalism, as historically these tapestries had to tell narratives in a somewhat simplistic fashion (after all, these tapestries had to be hand-sewn).  I ultimately chose to try to convey the overarching story of Xena: Warrior Princess through tapestry design.  Xena is the armored figure upon a horse (who somewhat resembles Argo, her steed throughout the series).  Behind her lies the death and destruction of her past (when she was a Grecian warlord).  The standing figure represents Hercules, who put her on her redemptive path, symbolized by the the central sunbeams.  Next to Xena are her fallen weapons, referencing the pilot episode of the series where Xena buries her weapons in a bid to escape her past.  Ahead of her lies Amphipolis and Potidaea, where she will meet Gabrielle (represented by the golden woman) who will be central to cementing Xena’s path to redemption.  Underneath these visuals is a modified quote from Julius Caesar (one of Xena’s main nemeses).  This quote hints at the larger themes of the series, indicating that this redemptive path is part of Xena’s destiny.  The first part of the statement also highlights Xena’s strengths in this context.  The final product is below, and hopefully conveys these themes effectively.

I had tons of fun with this one, especially with the spelling. Not only are all u’s turned to v’s automatically, but I tried to spelle as olde-fashionede as possible. Mainly by adding e’s to the ends of words.

This assignment is the 3 1/2 star “Tell a Tale on a Tapestry”. The tale I’ve chosen to tell is the Jabberwocky poem by Lewis Carroll. In particular, it’s the part where the son, who has been searching for the beast, is instead found by it instead.

I decided I wanted to do the tapestry assignment because it looked really cool, and the hard part wasn’t necessarily creating it- the website has all the tools you need. It’s using what the website gives you that’s the difficult part- there’s not a whole ton of options. Some animals, various men with pointy objects, a selection of trees and a longboat or two are pretty much it. I had such a hard time trying to figure out a story to tell when the Jabberwocky poem just.. leapt into my head? Actually, since I learned it as a song in 8th grade choir, it got stuck in my head and wouldn’t leave. I gave in to the earworm and put it on the tapestry. I hope you’re pleased, Jabberwock. Then I had to figure out how to tell the story.

The trees I chose because they looked the weirdest, and therefore the best choice for the “tumtum” tree(s) the hero rests under as he pauses in his quest for the Jabberwock, with “the jaws that bite, the claws that catch”. The hero was the best-looking dude with a sword that I mirrored to put his back to the trees and facing the Jabberwock. For the beast itself, imma be real honest here, I used a cow. The other creatures were weirdly twisted and the sun thingy I layered on top of the head to make “eyes of flame” fit the cow head the best. So. um. there it is. Plus I thought the legs were funny, like it was hopping or something. In my defense, I made this very late at night.

The text was actually the hardest to do, since you can only move the text box on the y-axis, and the left side on the x-axis. It automatically goes all the way to the right, which meant about 5 minutes of sheer frustration as I tried to figure out how to make the text NOT go over the tumtum trees. Ultimately I gave up and just shifted the trees down a bit. The text is probably the bit I’m the least pleased with; I feel that the last bit of text after the guy is too subdued and easy to overlook.

I dunno. I’m still snickering over my magical hopping cow with eyes to rival the Ark of the Covenant in the first Indiana Jones movie.

I liked this assignment because it is fun to work with an incredibly different design aesthetic than I might be able to create on my own. I also liked that I could use this for my character because the whole point is to tell a story. I went with an origin type story, using the materials offered to show my character’s move from his life at home to a new life in the city.

As someone who is not really great a drawing, it’s nice to work with templates where you’re really more in charge of design rather than classic artistic skill. This reminded me of one of this week’s daily creates, which I also enjoyed.

There was nothing truly difficult about this assignment, but it did take a little trial and error to test out the different stamp options and move them to create the scene that I wanted.

This was a really funny assignment to do. I did the Tell a Tale on Tapestry assignment (worth 3 stars), and used the Bildwirkerey von Bayeuxbe website to put this tapestry together. This tapestry is supposed to portray the two groups of drug dealers in The Wire fighting over the high rises, and people dying in the process (or crossfire like the child at the beginning of S2 E9).

Here is my very own Tapestry made on Bildwirkerey von Bayeuxbe. This was for the DS106 assingment, “Tell A Tale On A Tapestry“. This was pretty simple and straight forward. I guess no wonder its worth one star. Twas fun.