Finished peacock design

The next step after playing around with the cutout pieces is actually using a pencil and paper and here is what I have ended up with... Since it's a small block (6") and I want the tail to be the focal point the best way to do that is to make the head smaller...  I've mentioned this before..  When you you have two elements competing for attention.. You can either make one larger OR one smaller.. It would be impossible to make the tail any larger so the obvious solution was to make the head smaller.
This is a very handy tip to stick in youe bag of tricks... I chose to put him in a tree because the lovely peacock visitor I had  was always in our apple tree if he wasn't preening in front of the slider....

I mentioned yesterday I had a specific cord in mind and I allowed an ample space for it in the design..  I've had it forever and it's a woven cording with a gold thread.  To me it has kind of a rustic quality and I have used it often in my work...  it's a favorite of mine...  I also want to use gold bugle beads and braids and maybe give a try on the back using a woven design... maybe!
And some great gold metal leaves...

So if you read my blog yesterday on using cutouts you can see how I got from cutouts to an actual design...  Since this is quite a complex design it will be perfect example to show you step-by-step how easy it is to transfer to my block with my cut-away transfer method. 

Remember this will be ALL gold but as I often repeat designs I like in different ways, this will be one that has to be done in peacock colors some day...