Friday, June 28, 2013

Adventures in Tyvek

Here's the first experiment with Tyvek and metallic acrylics.  Since I got the metallic threads I needed for the last work, the red, to be exact, and noticed some other marvellous colors in the set, copper and cobalt blue metallics, I thought I'd better find a way to use them, too.

So here's the first Tyvek adventure:  a Tyvek envelope (cheapest way to buy small quantities), opened, painted randomly with gold, blues and green/turquoise metallic acrylics.  Then ironed between parchment paper sheets (thank you Shirley, for bringing parchment paper into my life, been meaning to get it for years and finally did so) to crinkle and shape it, and create little jags of holes here and there.  Next step is to back it with fabric -- here I'm using freecycled black satin -- and stitch into the design using the metallic threads I've been jonesing to use.

Approximate size of the whole piece 25 x 16 inches.


This is the result of late night and early morning work in the studio, yesterday being a difficult day, and needing some art to concentrate on, and now this feels very good.  We'll see how it goes. The bobbin of black sewing thread is for the next stage -- attaching to the satin background.

And, given my firm policy of crediting people with what they taught me, the Tyvek instructions came from  "Surfaces for stitch" by Gwen Hedley.  But I won't blame her if  it doesn't turn out!

2 comments:

  1. a great piece and you could not do better than following Gwen Hedley, have been on a few work shops with her in the past, so inspiring.

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  2. That's an interesting piece of artwork. I like the colours.

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