Have I mentioned how much easier it is to work on my duct tape dress model? Well, it is, and it’s much kinder on the back than bending over a table.
Working in short breaks and bits of spare time, I’ve refashioned the jacket ready for painting. First I attacked it with red chalk, then I snipped and unpicked until it was the shape I wanted.
With the shoulder pads gone, those weird shoulders still looked weird. It actually had a seam along the top of the sleeve, so I tried it on to see if I could pinch it flatter. Unfortunately, this revealed a problem I hadn’t noticed in the store:
The designer obviously didn’t expect the wearer to ever raise their arms above their head. Or even out to the side.
So I gave it a more critical look. The weirdness was more than just the shape of the shoulders. The sleeves, instead of being set at an angle to the body to allow a little room for movement, actually went straight down. Have another look at the first photo, and you’ll see what I mean.
Painting the fabric would only make it stiffer, which would turn it into a pretty straightjacket. So the sleeves had to go. I consoled myself that it was less fabric to paint, and painting under the arms would have been a challenge anyway.
So, a little machine sewing and hand sewing later, the Painted Jacket Vest was ready.
And the sleeves gave me something to test combinations of gesso, acrylic mediums and paint on.
I just remembered something. Years ago when all I did was paint on clothing I would use acrylic paints and mix it 1/2 and 1/2 with medium. It give the paint a bit of elasticity. I still have one of the first sweatshirts that I painted back when my son wasn’t even in school… he’s 25 now… Dang that was 21 years ago!!!! Maybe I’ll post a picture of that shirt this weekend.
I’ll mention it in the next post on this project, but I found that straight paint applied to the cloth bled through to the lining a lot. Putting gesso on first reduced the bleed through, but make the fabric stiff. So then I tried priming the fabric with straight extender medium, and it blocked most of the bleed through without making the fabric too stiff.
I also decided that adding extender medium to the paints as well would be a good idea, because thinning the paint might mean less need to really work the paint in to get good coverage, which seemed to make the bleed through worse.
So it’s good to know I’m on the right track – and a good proportion to aim for. Thanks!