Rapunzel Revisited

Followers of this blog may remember my disastrous dabblings with the Rapunzel fairy tale.  Well, when Anna from NoriaJewelry deservedly won our last Wire Goddess Team challenge with this beauty:

she got to choose the next theme.  And it was a piece produced using this image as a muse:

with the official title of 'Fairy Tale'.  That window set high in a wall naturally made me think of Rapunzel sealed up in her tower, with only a window from which to let down her hair as a means of ingress to the tower.  I re-read the story, and found that it was Rapunzel's father stealing the rampion plant (in some versions) from his enchantress neighbour for his pregnant wife, that caused the enchantress to demand that he hand over the child - his first-born.  Which he did, and Rapunzel was imprisoned in her tower.

Here is my piece inspired by the fairy tale, with plaited wire to represent Rapunzel's hair, and spiky rampion flowers with their bare stalks.  It's nothing like my earlier attempts (which, if you've been reading my blog, you'll realize is a good thing!), but I'm happy with how it turned out - not least, because there's not a face in sight! ;D

Just in case anyone was wondering ...

... what happened to the Rapunzel idea.  Here are the two failures so far.  I had this lovely vision in my head of an ivy-festooned tower, with Rapunzel's golden locks flowing down to a ground filled with flowers and grasses.  Right.  Here is attempt number one:

My first problem with this was that the plait looks as if it has merely been tied to the window sill.  Which it has.  Where is Rapunzel's head?!  I didn't get a chance to resolve this issue, because I then decided to destroy all hope of salvaging the thing by inadvertantly dropping it on the floor and rolling over it with my chair.  Which annoyed me (feel free to mentally cross out 'annoyed' and replace it with the strongest alternative you're comfortable with).  This does explain the mangled look of the piece, although not the general rubbishness of it.  So I shelved the idea for a while.  Then:

I'll try again, I thought.  The window was far worse this time, although I felt the hair was better.  But Rapunzel has no face!  How do I convey a face with a tiny piece of wire (that you're not going to even see from any distance) or a thicker piece of wire that I have no idea how to anchor?  A pink(ish) bead?  Nope.  So now we have a headless wig flowing out of a hole in the wall.  Still no face.  Still no flowers.  And I'm pig-sick of wrapping frames I'm going to waste.  So the idea is on hold for the time being.  Until the next time ... ;)