Tiger, Tiger

Hmmmm...well it was one of those days :)

I started the day yesterday making a some "tiger skin" following Nanson's excellent tutorial. I became frustrated trying to make my result into tile, and thus more useable and headed off to the garden, with William Blake's poem bouncing around in my head.

A few hours weeding and planting and I had worked out a way :)

Of course once I had found my super Sumatran tiger image, I wasn't satisfied until I'd also made a leafy batik texture for a background! [and a few others too :) ]

Clicking on the image above will bring up a larger preview and you can also download a zip with full desksized images from my 4shared files.

The Tiger

TIGER, tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?


In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare seize the fire?


And what shoulder and what art

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand and what dread feet?


What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? What dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?


When the stars threw down their spears,

And water'd heaven with their tears,

Did He smile His work to see?

Did He who made the lamb make thee?


Tiger, tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

William Blake (1757–1827)