a few months ago i developed a series of 
works based on peacocks. i’d been wanting to develop this work for a while and produced outcomes that included drawing, digital collage and traditional collage. The first piece I worked on was the pink portrait using cut-papers (this is roughly A3 in size), and then produced a second colourway in more realistic peacock hues.
peacocks are often simplified and their faces prettified with the focus on their plumage, but i wanted to work with portraits and thought that they were really quite stern with their faces containing often overlooked details and different textures. This was something I was conscious of when producing these portraits, and the drawing of them that i used to produce greetings cards emphasises their stern qualities even more, i think.
in addition, i worked up digital collage versions of the portraits in 2 colourways. this involved re-drawing them using a fineliner, scanning the drawings, scanning the textures and patterns that i’d used for the traditional collage pieces (i had the forethought to do this befor
e cutting up the painted patterns), and then cutting and pasting the textures in photoshop. i also had in mind that i wanted to produce a full figure paper-cut collage of a peacock. this became quite an arduous, painstaking task because each of the 15 large feathers i produced contained 150-200 separate cuts. i got blisters on my fingers. but it was worth it to produce the larger scale outcome (its approximately 90×42 cm – larger when framed up in the pictures).
i’ve put some of the smaller work up on my etsy shop here, where there’s more photos too.
