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Recall if you will the super-exciting project we have in the works, the creation of custom silk crepe for our upcoming production of Private Lives at Playmakers Repertory Company.
I wrote the first post a while back, about the sample-creation process in which we determined techniques and media to use to get the results our designer, Jennifer Caprio, wanted for the gown. The second post, back before the winter break, covered digital manipulation of the artwork in order to prepare it for our process. And in this one, we really take it from 2D to 3D.
The draper on this production, third year graduate Leah Pelz, carefully laid out and threadmarked the pieces of the gown onto lengths of 4-ply silk crepe. She also threadmarked a lot of guidelines--where the floral pattern needed to travel, where darts would be sewn into the bodice, etc. We wound up having two lengths of fabric, each of which would need to be hand-painted with the lily pattern.
Recall that at the end of the sampling process, we had decided upon a resist technique using a thinned gutta resist and a combination of silk paints and acid dyes. In order to get the most crisp control for this sort of process, you have to stretch your fabric on a frame, kind of like a canvas for a painting. In my dye studio, i have a large steel table, 4' x 8', with a removable stretcher frame made from 1"x4"s that we bolt together and fit into the table. But, we needed to border our silk pieces with strips of muslin in order to stretch the fabric on the frame--partly because the crepe was not wide enough for the frame without them, but also because we didn't want to damage or waste part of the silk by stapling or tacking through it to hold the fabric on the frame.
( Check it out! )
I wrote the first post a while back, about the sample-creation process in which we determined techniques and media to use to get the results our designer, Jennifer Caprio, wanted for the gown. The second post, back before the winter break, covered digital manipulation of the artwork in order to prepare it for our process. And in this one, we really take it from 2D to 3D.
The draper on this production, third year graduate Leah Pelz, carefully laid out and threadmarked the pieces of the gown onto lengths of 4-ply silk crepe. She also threadmarked a lot of guidelines--where the floral pattern needed to travel, where darts would be sewn into the bodice, etc. We wound up having two lengths of fabric, each of which would need to be hand-painted with the lily pattern.
Recall that at the end of the sampling process, we had decided upon a resist technique using a thinned gutta resist and a combination of silk paints and acid dyes. In order to get the most crisp control for this sort of process, you have to stretch your fabric on a frame, kind of like a canvas for a painting. In my dye studio, i have a large steel table, 4' x 8', with a removable stretcher frame made from 1"x4"s that we bolt together and fit into the table. But, we needed to border our silk pieces with strips of muslin in order to stretch the fabric on the frame--partly because the crepe was not wide enough for the frame without them, but also because we didn't want to damage or waste part of the silk by stapling or tacking through it to hold the fabric on the frame.
( Check it out! )
