The coming of the Magi

My Magi are coming along exceptionally slowly .... Here is my progress. 

I'm not convinced about the wise man in the foreground. He's making it a little cluttered. Might look better without him .... 

Or possibly he needs a change of outfit to balance the other side.

Aside from laboriously drawing the applique pieces on EQ8 ... tedious to do, but its good to be able to easily resize, reposition and recolour when they are done .... I have been thinking about the dawn sky. Unless fabric is very carefully chosen it always looks a bit choppy when pieced. I'm experimenting with inktense blocks and watercolours.  Now I know the images below look like rubbish, but I'm looking for colour fastness and the ability to blend the colours. The water colour paints are in the lower image and they don't affect the hand of the fabric at all. The inktense sticks are in the top image and they were drawn onto wet fabric and them blended, /they were nice to use. After leaving the for a week, I've heat set them and  I've ripped each image in half and washed half. I got some colour loss in the water, but that is to be expected from if the fabric has more colour than can be absorbed.  When they are dry I'll put them back together and compare.

Well that's progress for the weekend. I still would like a piper and drummer but they would have to be simple figures because the whole thing is getting a bit crowded.