Solitary Swallow

​Watercolour and stitch on cotton
 
I have used stitch direction to emphasise the subtle shades of blue, green and predominantly black and the lustre of the feathers.
For the architectural features I used repetitive patterning.
The geometrical design of the leaded windows offered an opportunity to refer to the geometric patterns of Tudor blackwork so the patterns used are based on blackwork stitch patters although are rendered far more freely, ignoring both the traditional method of thread counting and the strictly limited palette of blackwork embroidery.