Paper Cloth Piece

I titled this Paper Cloth Piece because I haven't given it an official name yet. I just finished it yesterday and was really pleased with the results. I count this as my first "successful" paper cloth art. I had tried doing paper cloth before but it always came out stiff and not to my liking at all. This time I used a different glue / water mixture which made the paper cloth soft and pliable. I used tissue paper, napkins and painted coffee filters glued to muslin then machine stitched. I love working with tissue paper and napkins because there are so many colors and designs to choose from. It is soft enough that it left a interesting texture when applied with the glue mixture to the cloth.

Above is a close up. The door and windows are copyright free images that I manipulated in photo shop and printed on cloth. I then used watercolor pencils and gel pens to enhance the colors. To add some depth I cut the paper cloth the size of the door and windows and glued the fabric behind that.
Now that I feel I have mastered the paper cloth construction I want to make more. It was really fun.

Chrysalis

The idea of a chrysalis has been on my mind for a while so I decided to try that idea with some mixed media fiber art. I had a general plan and knew I wanted it to be different from anything I had done before. I wanted to try some different techniques that would be out of my comfort zone. Below is a wire armature with a paper / celluclay molded face.

   

  I molded the celluclay face over a light wire armature then waited for it to dry. This was the first time I worked with celluclay but I can see it is a great medium I will use to add depth to future pieces.   Below is the finished piece.              

    

I covered the wire armature with batting the used my hand dyed gauze to cover and mold around that. I wanted to keep with organic, natural colors of nature so there are different shades of greens, browns and golds. To add some color punch I wrapped pipe cleaners with brighter colors and attached those.   Below is a close up of the face.

   I covered the celluclay with many layers of tissue paper using a matte gel medium. The hair is moss, root and lichen I found on my property. I wove some pieces of the dyed gauze in also.  Below is a side view that shows the wrapped pipe cleaners and green dyed gauze. You can click on the photos to enlarge.