Explorations Episode 12: Extreme Shrinkage

Explorations Episode 12: Extreme Shrinkage

Today I used a steamer to apply steam to a piece of raw silk which I had painted, layered with a product called Fabric Magic, and stitched.

Here's my little steamer:

Here's what that piece of silk looked like after I painted it, layered it with Fabric Magic, and stitched it, but before I steamed it:

Here's what it looked like after steaming:

Pretty cool, isn't it?

I'm well on my way to turning this piece of silk into an undulating band of foam:

Explorations Episode 11: Decisions have been made. Plans carried out.

Explorations Episode 11:  Decisions have been made.  Plans carried out.

I'm participating in an exhibit that requires me to create a 30" by 50" piece, and document my process as I go along.  I've been documenting away like crazy, experimenting with different materials in scale-size mockups.  You can read all about it elsewhere in prior  blog postings.

Today, after a hiatus of about a month, I'm back to report that I've finally begun the full-size piece, and that I made an important decision about the materials I'll be using for a significant part of the image I'm using, the foam:

After considering , and experimenting with, many varieties of silk, including silk habotai, silk crepe de chine, and silk chiffon, (you can read all about those experiments in prior postings), I decided to use lightweight raw silk (22 mm) for the foam.

In my scale-size experiments, the lightweight raw silk created a nubbly texture close to that of the foam itself. 

So I ordered a yard or two from Dharma Trading, my go-to source for silk: https://www.dharmatrading.com/

Yesterday I cut a piece the size I needed, then treated it with GAC 900, a textile medium.  Today I painted that piece of silk to look like the foam, except 30% bigger, because it will shrink and pucker in the process of using Fabric Magic:  http://www.pellonprojects.com/products/fabric-magic/.

When the painted silk dries, I'll layer it with Fabric Magic, then sew lines of stitching along its curves.  When the stitching is done, steam is applied, and the result is the creation of curvaceous puckers like these, in one of my scale-size experiments:

 The piece of silk I painted today

once it's dried, stitched, and steamed, will be mounted on this full-size background, merino wool felted onto slightly heavier raw silk (35 mm)

Can you picture these sand ripples padded so that half of them are raised and half are troughs?  That's what I plan to do.  In the troughs, I'm going to thread-paint clusters of tiny bubbles.  I'm also going to use beads for bubbles, throughout.

But first, gotta wait for that painted silk to dry.

Here are the books I've listened to since my last posting, about a month ago, all courtesy of Audible.com:

Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday--bah, overrated
The Diplomat's Daughter by Karin Tanabe--Interesting look at life in Japan during WW II
Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans--Black humor, my favorite kind
The Dry by Jane Harper--Hard to take
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid--Dystopian/magical realism look at immigration
A Midwife's Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich--first person account of midwifery in 1700s Maine

On the music system:  Various things.  Right now, the Fats Domino station on Pandora.  Did you know that Fats Domino's given name was Antoine? Gotta love that Francophone culture!  Especially since I'm part of it.  But that's another story for another day.