spitting feathers

After looking at birds and deciding it would be nice to include them in my designs somehow I started experimenting with how this could be done. After looking at the photographs from The Natural History display but also at the feather pens inside the shop I decided to focus on the idea of using the feathers, so I started trying to figure out how I could create them out of paper.

First I cut out feather shapes, and cut into them creating the frayed edges, after that I cut appropriate sizes of thin wire and covered them in white paper. I could have done without the wire but I thought it would add a nice element because then I could mould the shape and structure of each feather.

After I had created a few I decided to try and hang them to photograph to see how they would work as an ariel display. I wanted the feathers to look as though they were falling or caught in a gust of wind so I attacthed them at different points and and tried to stagger the angles of each one.





I'm really happy with how these photos came out, I think the photos where the light is behind the subjects rather than the front look more effective.

I also attempted to take a few photos demonstrating movement, the feathers falling in the wind. I do like the effect, especially how the shadows gave the effect of more feathers than there was, however the images are too blurry to be used.