There is something
seductive about lutradur and when a new idea
comes along using this fabulous material I feel compelled to meet the challenge.
In the premiere issue of Fibre and Stitch is an article by Carol McFee titled Lutradur and Lace. I suddenly knew what to do with some lace I had purchased about 2 years ago at a Thrift Shop. I'm not fond of the lace pattern, too frilly for me, but when I started cutting it apart to glue onto the lutradur the reason I had purchased the lace became clear; texture! The idea of this technique is to layer lace and cheesecloth onto lutradur to create textural designs or a pattern or . . . And then paint the surface.Once the lace, cheesecloth (and paper strips) were loosely adhered I turned the lutradur over and painted it with crimson fluid acrylic. An exciting thing happened. The crimson paint that flowed into the lutradur didn't completely saturate the strips of lace and cheesecloth on the front side but it did create a layer of color behind them; the cheesecloth and lace remained mostly white. (I wish that the camera had been able to discern some of the details) I didn't have a plan in mind when I created the vertical lines with the lace, etc, but once the crimson paint dried a plan started to develop; one I wouldn't normally have gone in. I've never used this palette of crimson, gold, burnt umber, and green before. At this point I'm considering a few possibilities for further work on it. In person this piece looks like vintage fabric
I barely finished the vessel in time for the Oct. challenge on the yahoo group TextileChallenges. It ended up being more of a workout than I was prepared for. But in the end I'm pleased with the result. (click on the photos to enlarge them.)
On the upper right of this montage is a piece of rust dyed felt that I distressed and then randomly glazed with some handmade paper pulp. The scan of the felt is probably more accurate of what the color really looks like; its not as orange as indicated in the photos. I had the worst time photographing the vessel. On the upper left is a close-up of the left side of the vessel showing hand dyed yarn and a stick wrapped with dyed fabric and rusted wire. The bottom left photo is just a fun one. The middle photo is a front view of the vessel and on the right is a back view. The substrate is painted lutradur that was distressed on the top after the felt was attached to it. Paint: washes of 3 shades of blue and some gold fluid acrylic. I love how paint seems to know where to flow on lutradur and in this case seemed to take on an antique patina that complemented the felt. Amazingly enough the color of the lutradur in the photos is pretty accurate.
