This project was taught by the fabulous Christy Tomlinson via her monthly Art Society Club. This project taught us how to make our own canvas using burlap and plaster of paris to cover a piece of recycled cardboard. You can see that I started with a very thick piece of corrugated cardboard as my base.
The dress form is also plaster wrapped around a cardboard base. I used pre-purchased plaster bandages and they are just fabulous. They become silky and buttery very quickly and are a dream to work with.
The plaster strips start take about 15 minutes to start to harden, and a good day to dry thoroughly. I coloured mine with distress inks and gesso. The plaster sucked up a lot of the colour, and although it doesn't look like it, the dress has about 5 coats of colour added to it. Look at all that delicious texture!
The wings are cut from various scrapbook papers, tattered with a distressing tool and inked with distress inks. Each of the feathers are cut individually and glued down in layers to give dimension.
She is finished with a few pieces of hand dyed lace and ribbon with a metal heart taken from a recycled piece of dress jewellery.
