So now it’s time to start playing! Today I plan to play with soy wax on dry fabric (pretreated with soda ash). I’ve divided 15 yards of fabric into 1-yard pieces and scoured the pieces; I’ve also mixed up nearly a gallon of print paste (a dye thickener). I plan to start by playing with plain soy wax on fabric, followed in short order by mixing dyes into the soy wax, a la Jane Dunnewold and Lisa Kerpoe’s book, Vibrant Color, which will color the fabric as well as providing a resist to further colors. I will probably also make soy wax crayons at the same time, and experiment with crayon rubbings, drawing with the crayons, and other ways of messing around with soy wax.

Tools I plan to use include stamps (home-carved of course), tjanting tools (a tool used to “write” on fabric with wax), and my tjap, which is an elaborate copper stamp designed for use with wax. They are expensive but beautiful tools – I bought mine on an impulse from Dharma Trading Company a few years back, but have yet to use it. (Surely a crime!) I have been dying to play with it for a few years now, but never found the time. Well, today’s the day!

But first I’m going to sew up a new muslin for the Phoenix Rising foundation garment. The sun isn’t up yet, so I won’t be able to see well enough to work outside. I should really have gone back to sleep, but I was way too excited!

Photos later, of course!

I’m essentially redundant at work by now, so I’ve been taking some of my free time and analyzing the different kinds of surface design I might play with. Here is a rough breakdown of how I intend to spend my time:

Day One:

• prep work (mixing dyes, print paste, soda ash soak for cotton)
• Play with applying soy wax resists – stamping, drawing with a tjanting tool, using my tjap.
• Apply thin dyes, thick dyes, etc. to resisted fabric with brushes, stamps, etc.

Day Two:

• Fold, tie, and dye a bunch more stars
• Work more with soy wax resists
• Play with mark-making using thickened dyes:
  • Writing/drawing lines
  • Scraping
  • Making marks with a credit card or similar object
  • Using a roller
  • Brushing
  • Stamping

Day Three:

• More mark-making
• Monoprinting
• Thermofax screen printing
• All above with water soluble resists

Day Four:

• Screen printing using cut stencils
• Deconstructed screen printing?
• Layering more pattern on fabrics dyed in previous days

Day Five:

• Mix paints
• Play with stamping, stenciling, etc. paint on dyed fabrics
• Clean up!

This is a rather ambitious slate, of course, and odds are that I’ll get sidetracked long before Days 4 and 5. That’s fine; those days are only roughly sketched anyway, and I’ll be delighted if something happens to pull me in a new and different direction. Also, I am planning to do some work on Phoenix Rising during those five days, so not everything will get done. That’s OK! The point here is to play. And to make the most of my five days between jobs.

Meanwhile, I have dyed the fabric for Phoenix Rising’s first muslin:

Dyed fabric for first muslin

I’d really prefer the orange-red to be more orange, but it’s not bad for a first stab. I won’t be using this fabric immediately, though – I need to build the undergarment and crinoline before doing the pretty stuff.

It is, as they say, “an artist’s conception”, and since my sketching skills are rudimentary, I thought I’d elaborate.

Structure: The bodice is pieces of handwoven fabric appliqued to a foundation that is probably silk broadcloth. The foundation will be fitted through the bodice with some flare in the skirt, with organza or tulle in the bottom to make a built-in crinoline, fluffing out the skirt. However, the dress will likely be less bell-shaped than the photo, maybe about 20% less floofy.

Appearance: The top will be solid colors of handwoven fabric in the first three tiers (yellow, orange, red). I will probably cut each color in a number of separate pieces, flame-shaped, both to eliminate the darts and to “punch up” the fire theme. I may embellish the seamlines to make the flame shapes more obvious. I may also change the grainlines around so they point in different directions, making the shapes more visible. (I can do this since the shapes are appliqued to a foundation, which stabilizes things.) There will be beading on the bodice, not super heavy but enough to add some sparkle and define the edges.

The skirt will be handwoven fabric in the phoenix pattern, three tiers in different colors: orange, red, and darkish red. (The darkish red may be hand-dyed on the very bottom with a bit of dark purplish red, as indicated in the photo at bottom left. I’m not sure about this part and will decide once I see it in a muslin.) Phoenixes will be bright yellow in all three layers.

Each tier of the skirt is separated from the one underneath it with a bit of tulle, letting it float freely (like fire). The edges won’t be quite as triangular – instead, they’ll be curved, like flames, and maybe a bit more wispy on the edges. Edges will have a light beaded fringe to help add definition and add some swing to each layer.

The back is still to be determined, but will probably have a very deep “V”, down to mid-back, to give the back more drama.

As you can see, this is a pretty complex garment and a lot of very fine handwoven fabric to weave, plus beading etc. Unlikely I’ll finish in time for next Convergence (especially with the book going at the same time), though Sharon has offered to help with some of the sewing. But the finished product will definitely be “Wow!”

The next step will be to drape the foundation garment so I have something to work with. Sharon showed me how to drape a simple shift (it was easier than I thought!); after that, I’ll add a flared skirt on the bottom and maybe a few layers of tulle to create the overall silhouette. Then I’ll start with the bodice, creating and pinning the flame-shaped pieces from dyed muslin. (Which means I need to dye the muslin, too!) Once that’s done, I’ll start building the tiered skirt from the bottom up.

If I’m feeling really motivated, I’ll dye the muslin for the skirt and screen print the phoenix pattern onto it, to give a better idea of what it will look like. I will probably also do large flame motifs in the skirts, partly to keep to the theme, partly because my fabric is only going to be 22″ wide after wet-finishing, and I want pretty seams. It will require more fabric, but one is supposed to suffer for one’s art, no?

Once I have the muslin draped, I’ll have a better idea of the colors and yardage needed, and can start weaving. Whew! What a tremendous amount of work to do. But doesn’t it sound like fun?

multiple designs for Phoenix Rising

In #1, I was playing with diagonal lines across the bodice, but it didn’t work, mostly because it created visual confusion at the waist, where the converging diagonal lines on top met the radially symmetric lines on bottom. My eye doesn’t know where to go at the waist, which is bad.

Enter #2. Here I shaded the bottom but made the waist a solid color, shading back to red at the top. This is a really strong design, in my opinion; the yellow connects and unifies top and bottom, and the reflected color gradations make for nice rhythm. The one problem? The brightest color (yellow) and the highest contrast portion sits at the waist, emphasizing the waist and hips. That’s not where I want attention, at least on my figure.

#3 was an attempt to keep the unity at top and bottom without focusing attention in the center. It’s not as strong a design, however,  because the two focal points (high contrast/brightest color) are now at top and bottom, leaving the eye feeling a little abandoned as it flips between the two. Also, I don’t want people focusing on my feet!

In #4, I wanted to see what happened if I kept the color gradation going in a single direction rather than flipping it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work as well as #2; there’s still that jarring transition at the waist.

I wanted to see what happened if I eliminated the black, so I tried #5. It was ok – the flames at the top had potential – but I didn’t feel the red adequately unified the top and bottom – odd, since the red stripes meet the red torso bottom in the same proportion (theoretically, anyway) as the yellow stripes meeting the yellow torso bottom in #6. However, yellow is a more visually dominant color than red, so I think what’s happening is that the eye is traversing the yellow stripes in #5 and then crashing into the red of the torso. In #6, the eye travels up the yellow stripes, encounters the yellow bottom, and moves smoothly into the rest of the piece.

Verdict? #2 is definitely the strongest design of the set, at least in my opinion. If I were using it, though, I’d add some crystals or some lace at the top of the red flames on the bodice, to draw the eye up from the waist and give a focal point that isn’t the waist/hips. (Also, because the line of the dress flares at the hip, the waist looks thinner than it is, so it might work anyway.)

I don’t know that I’ll use this design – I really want to use the phoenix fabric and am not sure the curvy stripes would work well with the phoenix pattern – but working my way through multiple variations has really helped me understand what works and what doesn’t, especially with color gradations.

I’m also in the process of helping a friend critique a set of photos from a really interesting costume shoot, which is helping me develop my design analysis skills. There is really nothing like looking at a set of designs (some good and some not) and evaluating each one to see how it works. It’s easier (for me) with a variety of quality levels than it is in looking at perfect work – looking only at super strong designs, it’s hard to see what doesn’t work, which is just as important as seeing what does work.

So anyway, yesterday was enlightening, and hopefully today will be equally so!

…then I realized I was being silly. I don’t really like in-person classes; they’re expensive, they either move too quickly or too slowly, and hauling tools around for hands-on classes is a pain. Furthermore, I sit here surrounded by a TON of books that I have not had time to read, full of wonderful techniques that I have yet to try, with materials and tools that are patiently waiting to be used.

In short, an at-home, do-it-yourself workshop seems called for. An intensive, of course, so I can immerse myself in the topic day and night for five straight days (Mike is out of town over the holiday weekend, so I won’t be neglecting him). And exploring something I wouldn’t normally poke my nose into, in keeping with my tradition of traveling somewhere exotic between jobs.

I haven’t decided the topic fully yet, but I’m leaning towards surface design – playing with paint, dyes, discharge paste, and various ways to apply them. This is a topic I’ve wanted to explore for awhile, but never had time – always “some other day”. Well, “some other day” is here, and five days of messing around in the studio seems Just Right. I just got a lovely book by Claire Benn and Leslie Morgan of Committed to Cloth, titled Making Your Mark: Creating Cloth for imagery, stitch, embroidery and embellishment. It covers various ways of applying dyes directly to fabric – brushing, scraping, monoprinting, etc. And I have books (boy, do I have books!) on screen printing, shibori, katazome, batik, painting with fabric paints, and all other manner of toys. And have I mentioned that I have an embarrassingly well-equipped surface design studio? and have used only a tiny fraction of my toys?

Yes, surface design seems called for. What topic? I have no idea yet. If I only have five days, I need to narrow it down, but I really want to try it all! I need to settle on a few topics to explore, dedicating a day or two to each.

But I love the idea of a choose-your-own adventure workshop at home! I’m looking forward to it.