Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Sailing ships and sealing wax and other fancy stuff


NY artist Ann Wood has inspired me with her ships and birds and owls. After seeing her ships and sailboats, I spent many a night thinking about them until there came a day that the need to create one of my own was so great that I was not likely to get a good night’s sleep until I did. I sooo wanted to get some really nice dupioni silk for the sails, but I have fabric sitting in my cabinet and it seemed somehow wrong not to use it... at least my first attempt. And it seemed even more stupid/wasteful to even consider sails until I had a basic boat.


Ann offers a pattern for her basic sailboat, which is paper mache over cardboard, but I really liked her fancier sailing ship, which she made from translucent paper and white fabric sails.

I started my sailing ship with a basic wire frame, using cardboard and paper mache on the bottom of the hull.







I then covered the hull with a woven silk fabric that I purchased years ago to make a jacket out off. I never lost sleep over a jacket but since thoughts of a sailing ship were keeping me awake, I think it was a fair trade.
 
 
 
Plus I’m no longer working, so the jacket isn’t really needed.

For the sails, I used a basic cotton twill that I had in my fabric stash. I used some wire in the bottom hem of the sail to give them some ‘air’. I added some patches, buttons and a few beads and I’m really happy with the result.





Since it turned out so well, I went to the fabric store to get some heavy-bodied dupioni silk, but I while I was in the fabric store, I got distracted by the colorful, satiny charmeuse and ended up purchasing several different colors to try a ship with colorful sails. I'm already working on that one and will post pictures when I'm done.

I call this one 'Ship of Dreams' and I even added a nameplate on the back. So fun!



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