Having a cold all week (and multiple sick days off from work) gave me ample time to work on thesis. Also, because I am traveling this weekend, I had to made as much progress as possible during the week since the larger pieces could not come with me.  I did manage to get my ink and pen nibs aboard the plane though, and plan to work on more smaller components while away from the city.

I’ve begun pasting the dahlias onto some of the pieces.  Rather than pasting them over the squiggly lines i have made small incisions to allow the flowers to pass in and out of the existing design.  I also made the decision not to alternate the flowers (ie. one white, one brown, etc) around the perimeter of the circular pieces.  Instead, I wanted to paste them in an organic way that would add visual balance with size, tone, and value.  This involved working slowly, adding one component at a time, and standing back to see what areas needed improvement.

The Mayan-esque monsters below may be added as motifs to to some of the works, but I haven’t figured out where exactly they go yet.