Lizard is now all beaded up and I think he's done.
Removed from hoop, and set along with the butterfly wings.
Next I have to figure out my turtle. Or maybe a bee. Or a dragonfly. So many insects so little time so much ambition. And I have two shadow boxes ready for pieces.
I may end up putting the wilderness animals on that black satin with the copper monotype on it. Just wondering. Or possibly redoing some earlier goldwork abstract shapes to mount on it like a series of constellations. I can go back in and change them to stumpwork by applying wire around the perimeter of each shape.
Well, there's time to figure all this out while I make the animals to set in place on one piece or the other.
So this is what's afoot.
The freeform crochet, color is a pale sage green, on natural colored muslin pinned on a big hoop, probably a quilting hoop, just to see it, will probably come off and a painted, frizzled, technical term, Tyvek will be on the bottom layer, the crochet replaced, and meandering about over the top of the Tyvek, and various insects and wee beasties in the foliage. At least that's the plan.
Here's how the Tyvek painting looked with the acrylic paint, metallic gold, applied with sponge brush, my fave tool.
I had a fun time frizzling the Tyvek, and even more fun getting the acrylic back off the footplate, having forgotten the correct temp at which to frizzle. Note to self: cooler than you thought. But the acrylic came off obligingly onto the paper I was ironing through, so that was fine.
Here it is all frizzled nicely, and after I trimmed down the frizzled painting, here it is in relation to the crocheted work stretched on the hoop
Then this habitat will need inhabitants, drawings of which you see here, along with the threads I have in mind to create them separately, using the tiny hoop.
I'll create the little bees and lizards and their friends, seen here in drawings, in goldwork with beading, for later affixing in their crocheted and Tyvek habitat. Handmade paper will also feature in this work. I already have some I embossed with a little honeycomb design. And I molded little animals in handmade paper, which you saw earlier.
It's shaping up to be a kind of fourth dimensional piece, where time is the fourth dimension, ghostly bees and lizards molded in pure white paper, along with lively ones in goldwork and beading.
A sort of update of Peaceable Kingdom, if Douanier Rousseau had known how to crochet, or to bead and stitch, or to do goldwork, or if Tyvek had been invented, or if he knew about even the third dimension, let alone the fourth, he being a flat, decorative sort of painter..cue Matisse.. Well, come to think of it, nothing like Peaceable Kingdom, more like Stitched Wilderness...
But exactly how this will all come about, don't ask me, I only work here! this is one of those works I'm not in charge of. It just has been coming over me in bits for several months.
And today, after reading a great history of Eliz. First, by Alison Weir, a great read, my right brain, evidently tired of being quiet while I studied peace treaties and dates and political strategies, suddenly presented me with this possibility. Who am I to argue?
Anyway, that's where we are. Speaking of helpful, I hope, dear blogistas, you realize how helpful it is to the process to have this blog where I can think aloud and bang on about what I'm doing, knowing I'm being read with interest and curiosity.
I did one other small Tyvek work, you saw it in my exhibit earlier this year, and I think I need to do more, once I get this piece properly under way. The nice part is that it uses the studio, haven't been doing that much lately, and it also gives me portable bits to carry in to my embroiderers' guild meetings, always a nice thing. So often my work isn't portable and I sort of chat and drink tea!
If anyone wants to know more about the Tyvek thing, just ask in the comments, and I'll be sure and say more next time. I hesitate to bore you with endless technical stuff, but I'm glad to talk about it if useful to you. Also to point out the precautions you need to take if you do it.
