During the last few weeks, I've been working on a wonderful commission! The nice lady who requested it wanted an autumn palette of mossy greens, rust, orange, and mustard yellows. Thankfully, these are among my favorite colors too! We also corresponded about the size she needed. Once everything was settled, I went to work.
Believe it or not, there are nineteen different colors of polyester stretch velvet in this piece. All my polyester stretch velvet is previously backed with WonderUnder/Pellon 805, a heat-activated fabric adhesive. Obviously, I buy it by the bolt and at wholesale prices.
The finished size of the framed artwork was to be 30" x 49 1/2". Why? Well ... after subtracting the width of the selected, narrow frame, the needed UV filtering/anti-reflective glass would be 28 1/2" x 48". I advised my client that anything over that 48" length would run into "big bucks". Leaving approximately two inches of mat board showing around the artwork meant that the artwork needed to be 24 1/2" x 44". That's the size of the work in all these images!
After the foundation layer is firmly ironed to the recycled, black industrial felt, I start cutting smaller and smaller pieces of polyester stretch velvet to them. Some of the shapes have as many as five layers! Everything is fused together using a hot iron. A piece of silicone treated paper protects the fabric from the ironing.
Next comes another layer of WonderUnder/Pellon 805 over the entire piece. This heat-activated adhesive fuses strips of sheer chiffon and bridal tulle/netting in place. I like these strips of sheer fabric for two important reasons. 1) The shifting hues produce a more complex coloration. 2) The sheers provide a smooth surface over which my sewing machine can more easily navigate. The foot of my machine is less likely to get caught between the many layers of polyester stretch velvet. Then ... I stitch like crazy ... free motion style! I use a Babylock Tiara with black 100% cotton thread. That thread is the only natural in the entire artwork. Everything else is a synthetic. I stitch individual motifs on every square and rectangle. More importantly, I stitch back-and-forth to link every shape to its neighboring shapes. These little stitched "bridges" go over the space between the shapes ... the space where the felt is still visible.
At this point, the artwork is stapled to a stretcher bar and taken to the garage. I put on my ventilator mask because the fumes from melting polyester are harmful.
I use two sizes of soldering irons to melt holes through the polyester stretch velvet. In the photo above, the little "bridges" are very obvious. They are totally important because ...
... in the final step, I aim my industrial heat gun at the space between the shapes. The felt melts in a matter of a second or two. The shapes are held together because the cotton thread doesn't melt! Synthetics melt; naturals don't melt. I melt from the back side because the material tends to curl in that direction. It is important to melt from the middle to the edges ... because once you melt the edges, the piece falls out of the stretcher bar!
The artwork is hand-stitched to a piece of acid-free mat board and then fit into its frame. Strips of foam-centered board are glued to the interior side of the frame to hold the glass away from the artwork.
Today, the client picked up the finished artwork! Today was a great day!
That's an amazing process!
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