bird of paradise

batik and sequins - on cotton
48 x 69cm

Where I grew up in the Sivalik hills (Dehradun, India); the house was built on terraced land overlooking a river, and hills.  We have quite a big garden, mango and litchi trees amongst a variety of flowering trees, a patch of land dedicated to a Eucalyptus 'forest' and tall lucious bamboos growing wild in the dark slopes where the monsoon rainwater runs off towards the river.

Even though over the years, the neighbouring fields have been sold and converted into residential plots with more and more houses, more people, more noise; our little pocket still retains its 'green-ness'.  One of the beautiful memories I have of this house is the amount and variety of birds which stopped, nested, or just visited.  During spring, on rare occasions we would see Birds of Paradise.

This is my ode to them and to the magic of my childhood.
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On a more technical note : I am experimenting with adding embroidery onto the batiks.  First of all : I need to learn a LOT about embroidery (was always more of a tomboy); and second : I'm not certain the sequins were the right choice, even though I like the rainbow shine of them.  I figure I need to leave this for a while, then take a fresh look to see if I want to do it again, differently.