Advanced Silk Shading

 Lucy writes: Advanced silk shading is one of the techniques studied for the diploma at the Royal School of Needlework. The subject should be a photograph of an animal, bird, fish or butterfly. I took a risk by using a photograph not of a live bird, but of a model: a recreation of the dodo, which is exhibited in the Oxford Natural History Museum. All Oxford dwellers have a great affection for the Oxford dodo, mummified remnants of which are in the keeping of the museum: it inspired the dodo in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and is said to be a caricature of the author himself. This is my embroidered tribute to the long-dead bird, the author and the book.