More of the same

Another fan update. I'm always so tentative about doing ART projects rather than craft stuff so the going is slow. I did, in fact, put the forelegs with curled talons along the sides. I love how it looks, but it left a large chunk of open space between the braided border of the central medallion and the gryphon heads. Not sure what to put there yet. I tried a few things, including flourished seeblatter like on the bottom but it didn't work shapewise. I tried a different type of border around the central medallion as another option but it made the gryphons get really lost and the border became the star. Not really the look I'm going for.

I decided to move on and rough in the Amazon. Depending on what I do with her hair in the frog below the central medallion I think the upper might blend. Or maybe inspiration will hit and I'll have a brilliant idea for what to put into the empty space. Nothing worse than empty space.

I have decided I need to do something further with the Apres. It is a little squished anyway right now from getting knocked as I smoothed and worked with the back of the handle, but in general I think it is too cartoony in contrast to the gryphons. Maybe some muscle modelling will help. Not sure. It certainly needs something.

I'm playing around with adding some swarovski crystals in blue and considering some pearls as well so I set these on to see how it might look. It might be a bit over the top. But who knows. The entire project is a might bit crazy. I'm going to keep fiddling with it and see what happens. Hopefully it will be done in the next couple of days and I can pop into the oven.

Progress on the fan

Not really much to see, but after resculpting the gryphon on the right five different times I wanted to get a record of the wings and faces before I screwed them up again. I'm just not very good at symmetry. Considering I haven't had an art class since junior high school though, I don't feel too terrible about how it is going.

I'm planning to do a twisted rope around the central medallion to set it off and I need to do some sort of flourish about midway down on the sides in order to get the correct shape. Considering a curled claw/foreleg. Maybe. I also need to do some work up between the wings to echo the bulb at the bottom of the handle and reiterate the seeblatt.

I spent a couple of hours couching gold cord on the cappotto this morning as well. Anyone remember that? It's been crumpled in a pile next to my couch as I've ignored it for several weeks. There was some serious consideration of just ripping off all the gold cord since it just doesn't lay like I want it to. Plain guards would go on much faster and then I could just finish the thing. The little bit of gold really does pop though so it is still there. I'm determined to keep plugging away at it. I'm bound to finish eventually. Of course, I said the same thing about the never-ending loose gown. . .

More extant tourney shields

I was browsing the Met last night and came across some more tournament shields as well as some decorative parade and pageant shields. Like anything else, once you're aware of something you start seeing them. My tourney shield project got me looking and now I'm starting to see them pop up. The one to the left is German, dated about 1500 with a fabulous owl. The motto translates to "Although I am the hated bird, I rather enjoy that." How's that for a thumb your nose at 'em declaration!

There is something sort of whimsical about the entire piece to me and I can't nail down why. The quartered arms and image with the looping ribbon certainly are perfect for what  imprese should be. Maybe it's just the expression on the owl's face. Or maybe it's just my personal biases. The shield itself is linen, leather, wood, gesso and paint.

There's another fabulous German one with similar materials from about fifty years earlier. It's motto is "Take me as I am." The face of the woman is really lovely.

I found a couple of other pageant shields in the Metropolitan's collection which were lovely art in and of themselves. The second one made me especially happy. It is 1580's Italian with a lovely gold color background and floral decoration. While it is not an imprese type shield, it is meant for display and the motifs on it made me feel like the maiolica inspired enthusiasm of my decoration might not be as out there as it seems.

Sent in my update for June

I kept hoping to finish more to have it to report so I've been procrastinating my update to Bella for the IRCC II but I finally just bit the bullet and sent it in today. Figured I should do some updating here too. Most of the last week has been spent working on a pair of Effigy style (ish) bodies for the petticoat bodies. I drafted them correctly the first time with the long angled seams in back, but it wasn't working with my body so I adapted the back from my side back lacing bodice pattern and put a seam at the side, then kept the shape of the Effigy from there forward. It doesn't have the dramatic shaping from the back seam, but since most of my intent is for smoothing and structure I think this will work just fine.

The fabric choices are kind of funny. I've been dithering over what I wanted to use and have gone shopping several times and come home empty handed. I actually pulled this canvas from my junk pile for use as a mock up. It was a $1.50 table find. I made it into a coat awhile back, but it has issues with fading when washed. Since the corset and silk skirt won't be washed in that manner I think it actually works great for this project. The firey orange silk was a gift from Maestra Bianca da Ravenna a couple of years ago. It's one of those fabrics that doesn't quite go with anything so it has been sitting in my stash, but it somehow matches the crazy red and orange of the canvas. I'm going to do wide guards to tie it in further. I've got the stays boned (130 bones/two packages of 36" duct ties later) and am cutting the binding now. I'm using a really soft red pigskin suede that I had originally planned to make embroidered Rus boots with. That keeps getting back-burnered so I decided to go ahead and use it rather than hoard it and replace it later if I got around to the boots. Working on the binding is this week's project and then I'll move on to stitching the far too many eyelets for the front lacing and the points at the waist tabs to tie on the skirt.

As you can see, work on the fan continues. I pulled off the clay ring from the bottom and intend to replace it with an eyebolt screwed into the wood armature so it will be more sturdy for hanging. I got the Apres sculpted in in the center medallion and blocked in the gryphons on the side. I've been fiddling with the Amazon a bit, trying to figure how to make her work on the back of the handle rather than just being plopped down on the front. The last attempt got pulled off, but I think I'm getting closer. The armature is just too wide, but it is too late to fix that so I'm adapting to it.
  

Sculpting the fan

Lelio Orsi Design for fan handle 1526-87

 Via

I've been turning this idea over and over in my head, trying to figure out how to make it happen. I really want to take a step forward and do something more exciting than the turned wood, dowels, and pressed wood filigree I've done in the past.  I found several drawings of designs for Italian fans that are just shatteringly beautiful, including the one to the left that is in the British Museum. They were major luxury items at the time involving skill and a great deal of gold. I got the harebrained idea that I would cast one in pewter and then gold leaf it. That was a delusion of grandeur I'm afraid.  Loads of research on lost wax casting later, I have put that idea up on a shelf and decided to go with modern methods for now and learn to cast to that level of expertise later. I figure it will take a few years.

Sculpy wins again! Just like the zibellino masks, it is a quick and easier solution for not having a goldsmith in my pocket. I decided to use the basic layout of the Orsi fan and change the individual details to be more in line with my preferences. The figure is getting shifted to an Amazon, I'm adding my seeblatt, and the side grotesques are becoming gryphons. The central medallion is probably going to have my Apres. I'm not sure yet. it will really depend on how well the sculpting goes and what I can manage. I've got a wooden stir stick covered in a tin foil armature as my base and it's working so far. I'm liking the pieces I've sculpted on the bottom. Hope the rest goes as smoothly..
 

Not dead, just boning a corset

Sorry for the radio silence. I got the boning done for the back yesterday and am still working on the front pieces. I am sort of doing an adapted effigy. It has the tabs and the front piece is similar, but my body just wasn't going for the back seams so I adapted my bodice pattern for the back, adding tabs, and put the seams at the sideback. It loses the shaping from the seam, which is where the major shaping comes from, but my column body and barrel chest really hasn't got much shape. I'm going to make them and wear them awhile and see how it works and make changes from there.

There are way too many bones in this thing so far. Another of the disadvantages of being a larger than average lady.

Stomacher synergy

1590-1610 Blackwork embroidered stomacher

You ever have one of those moments when someone else posts just the right thing on their blog at just the right time? I got most of my research on stomachers taken care of this morning by Pat Poppy over at The Costume Historian. I hadn't really run across much on early stomachers and was a little worried after my early erroneous assumption that the triangular patterns in the lace modelbuchs were stomachers when they are apparently partlets instead that I was completely off base. Granted, the info is on English pieces, but at least (some of it) is in the right century. Most things I'd seen previously were all 18th century which didn't help me whatsoever. I went searching for the references to Elizabeth I's stomachers and the diversity of attachment method and stiffened and unstiffened bases as well as the wide variety of materials is making me heave a big sigh of relief. I like having loads of wiggle room for trying things out.

I've got the first draft of a set of Effigy stays based on my new conic block drawn up and ready to mock up. Once they're tweaked I can draft the bodice and finally cut that lace. I'll be combining my observations about lace over color filling in the center of the open bodice and the information from extant English pieces like this embroidered one from 1590 ish in the V and A. That piece of blue silk that was tossed aside in favor of the printed linen for the pocket may get to be involved after all.