Coming-Up-For-Air – Canvas Wrap

from $95.00
This piece came from watching something delicate break the surface. I wanted to capture that moment between underwater and air, where the pressure changes and everything becomes possible. The body is quilled from dozens of thin paper strips layered and coiled to create dimension. I started with a curved, organic form that moves from left to right across the page, like something mid-motion. The lower half I covered in iridescent rhinestones, tiny ones packed close together so light catches them at different angles. They shift from blue to green to purple depending on how you tilt your head. That sparkle isn't decorative. It's meant to read as water catching the light, as something emerging from below. Above that jeweled curve, I built the real complexity. Long, flowing lines of quilled paper spiral and curl upward and outward, like hair or fronds or the way water moves. Some are tight and controlled. Others are loose and wild, reaching into empty space. I used dark ink for definition and lighter blue-gray tones to suggest depth and movement. The spirals at the top left are the tightest, almost feathered. They gradually open and relax as they move toward the right, until by the tail end they're just flowing strands without much structure at all. The composition is all about contrast. The dense, glittering body grounds the piece. The flowing, almost chaotic line work above it suggests release and escape. Together they feel like a single moment of transformation, caught mid-breath. --- The canvas texture softens the darkness of the inked lines while making the rhinestone details glow from beneath the surface. The pale background becomes almost luminous, so the flowing paper work reads as movement against stillness. The iridescent body catches light differently depending on the angle you view it from, which works beautifully on canvas because it invites you to step closer and look again.
Size:
This piece came from watching something delicate break the surface. I wanted to capture that moment between underwater and air, where the pressure changes and everything becomes possible. The body is quilled from dozens of thin paper strips layered and coiled to create dimension. I started with a curved, organic form that moves from left to right across the page, like something mid-motion. The lower half I covered in iridescent rhinestones, tiny ones packed close together so light catches them at different angles. They shift from blue to green to purple depending on how you tilt your head. That sparkle isn't decorative. It's meant to read as water catching the light, as something emerging from below. Above that jeweled curve, I built the real complexity. Long, flowing lines of quilled paper spiral and curl upward and outward, like hair or fronds or the way water moves. Some are tight and controlled. Others are loose and wild, reaching into empty space. I used dark ink for definition and lighter blue-gray tones to suggest depth and movement. The spirals at the top left are the tightest, almost feathered. They gradually open and relax as they move toward the right, until by the tail end they're just flowing strands without much structure at all. The composition is all about contrast. The dense, glittering body grounds the piece. The flowing, almost chaotic line work above it suggests release and escape. Together they feel like a single moment of transformation, caught mid-breath. --- The canvas texture softens the darkness of the inked lines while making the rhinestone details glow from beneath the surface. The pale background becomes almost luminous, so the flowing paper work reads as movement against stillness. The iridescent body catches light differently depending on the angle you view it from, which works beautifully on canvas because it invites you to step closer and look again.