Coral Cacophony Complete!!!

I have finished my Ocean tapestry textile Collage piece and I am calling it Coral Cacophony.  I want to thank all of you who visited and left such supportive comments and wonderful suggestions for names for this piece.  You comments make me happier than you will ever know!! Thank you SOOO much!

To frame the piece I first mounted it by stitching, to a piece of 140lb watercolor paper that I had painted about 14 times with various colors of blues, from turquoise to cobalt, Diazanine purple, Paynes gray and black paints.  Then I drilled thru the back of the shadow box frame and wired the paper and tapestry to the back of the frame to hold all securely in place.  this piece is now hanging at Artful Dimensions 3d Gallery where I have my Studio ( you can read more about that here).

Now for some detail shots and a bit of explanation about how I did what I did.  ( Remember to see larger pictures just click on the picture!!)
Here you can see that I created two red jelly fish and the tentacles of a third that has swum off the piece. These were made from red silk gauze and stuffed with raw silk fibers and red silk threads. The one closest to the viewer was stitched to the very top layer and the next one was stitched under a layer of deep blue tulle and the tentacles of the third were stitched under two layers of the netting.  This gives the effect of distance away from the viewer and it all works amazingly well, at first I was skeptical.

You can see the layers of singed organza and the hand stitched feather stitches to create sea weeds and sea fans and a small teal and lime green fish, just above the dyed pink linen sea fan.   ( By holding the edge of a cut organza shape next to the flame of a tea light candle , the organza melts and causes the fabric to curl and pucker and it becomes sea weed before you eyes! Such fun and so effective!!!) This piece really is all about the various layers!!

This is the very bottom , middle section of the piece and you can see the ocean tumbled rocks, from Nauset Beach on Cape Cod in Massachusetts,stitched into envelopes of hand dyed and natural vintage lace bits.  I must admit to thinking that I was a bit nuts as I sat one night selecting stones to stitch into lace!!!  But I am really very pleased with the results and with the weight that the reef is given by the bulk and textures of the stitched stones!! The lace also gives one a place to stitch more bits, see the pearl sitting on top of the white stone stitched into the green and blue lace? 
 I made several components out ot polymer clay to add to the rocks and crevasses of the piece.  on the rock to the far right you can see a polymer clay starfish and up near the top of the picture and to the left you can see a tiny pink and orange anemone. 
 There is also a chunk of cobalt blue sea glass, many many beads and ribbons, vintage buttons and many found shells collected from various beach walks.

The bright pink brain coral was made from a large piece of hand dyed silk velvet that I tucked and stitched into place and then added many beads and bits and shell pieces.  You can also see three orange tube worms that I created from orange cording with beaded lavender tentacles.  I had a good deal of fun making those particular components!

This is a very tight shot so i can show you the orange sponges that I created by stitching bits of yellow plastic vegetable bag into cone shapes and then stitching some orange silk inside the yellow mesh cones.  Just below the sponges is a polymer clay coral formation and next to that a purple star fish sitting on a lace wrapped stone.  At the right, on top of the lace wrapped stone is a tiny purple and orange polymer clay anemone.

 I stitched in many different tiny shells that I have always collected.  To the left of the blue lace covered white rock is a small pair of Siamese twin oyster shells that were found with a ready made hole and and at the far left edge of the picture you can see a bit of wampum (quahog clam shell that has been tumbled in the waves- it is purple and white, in color, it also had a ready made hole!)

The final size of the unframed Coral Cacophony is approximately 10 inches deep by 14 inches wide and it weighs about 4 pounds,  No doubt due to the four rocks and multiple  encrusted bits added to the piece!


I must thank the amazing textile artist Judith Baker Montano for writing her wonderful book Fiberart Montage!  If you are at all interested in textile collage, this is a MUST HAVE book.  Ms. Montano made me believe that I could even begin to attempt to create my own ocean piece by describing and showing how a master achieves her beautiful work.  You can look at the book in detail here.
Again , thank you all for stopping by and for helping me find my way thru this piece!! Now I am off to start working on another similar project as I am going through "encrusting withdrawal" and we cannot have that!!!!

Ocean Beaded Cuff- parts 1 + 2

Awhile back , I told you that my next beaded zipper cuff would have an Ocean theme. Well, i have finished the major beading portion and thought that I would share my progress so far!

First of all , I wanted to show you how I place the zippers. Here is a picture that shows you the genreal idea- I did come along after this picture was taken and added more zippers and trimmed down the fabric portion of the zipper just a bit.

Now for another Ta DA! from To DO!!! Ta Da! Wish that it was that quick, but then it would not be a wonderfully fun and creative original project, would it?? Here is a shot of the finished beading, before I apply the piece to the cuff form and do the beading around the edges to hide the seam between cuff front and cuff back.

Here you can see two detail shots. On this piece, I used some of my personal found treasures. I have incorporated two small pieces of purple clam shell from a Quahog. These wonderful purple pieces are tumbled in the surf and if one is really lucky, they can be found with holes in them! Other sea critters drill holes int he dense shell making them perfect for use as beads, charms or whatever one fancies. As a child I used to discard all of the pieces with 'Worm holes" because I felt that they were not "perfect"- not anymore!!!!! Now my dear Becca, the Purple Picking Queen, knows exactly what mom is looking for and always emerges from the surf with a treasure in hand!!

In this picture , you can see the smallest piece of Wampum (the local Indians used to use the shell as money- the shell bits with the most purple were the most highly valued)- there you have now had your daily history lesson-! The smallest piece that I used is just below and to the left of the purple spiral bead.

The larger piece of wampum can be seen at the bottom right of this detail shot.

the white porcelain button atthe top of this picture is a vintage underwear button- before the days of elastic- you cna tell because of the overly large holes. (that makes two bits of history trivia so far today!) I also used a sea turtle charm, several mother of pearl star beads, a fish bead, a yellow snail shell that I gathered on a beach in Maine when I was 4 or 5, a scallop shell charm and a green porcelain sea horse charm.

The next time you see this piece it will be on it's cuff and completed- soon , I hope- although I have several projects that must take priority, before I can get back to this!

I hope that everyone has a wonderful day! I just got fabulous news that my friends in Victoria Australia ,got a deluge of rain the other day and were finally able to relax a bit about fire dangers!! They have had such a rough summer and my thoughts and prayers continue to be with them!

Peace!