Sunday, August 31, 2008

Altered Mannequins

I wanted to make some birthday gifts for my friends Pea and Maggi, and found a great idea in the book Paper Transformed by Julia Andrus. Here are the 3 mannequins I created; the one in the middle was my 'practice' lady. I have lots of painted/inked papers to use in future projects as I tried various water color mediums to create the petals of the skirts. Not only was finding the right colors and issue, but also the right kind of cardstock. But I finally found what I liked when I got out my Aileen's color mist sprays and some very thick cardstock. Both sides of the cardstock need to be colored so the cardstock has to be pretty sturdy. Another tip I can pass along is color both sides of the paper before you cut out the petals for the skirts. Based on the template I created for the petals, I was able to cut 5 petals from each 8 1/2 x 11" sheet of paper. And I used 10 petals on each of the skirts. The upper torso is draped with plain white tissue paper that I sprayed with the same colors I used for each of the lady's skirts. The flower petal corsages on each was also color sprayed.
This mannequin is still in my possession. I'm not sure if I'll keep her or give her to someone. I would work each step on this one first and then move on to the other two. For this one I sprayed a base coat of Asilomar Sand color mist first. One side I left just adding a little gold, but the rest of the sides of cardstock I then applied a different color once the base was mostly dry.

This is the mannequin I gave to Pea. Each side of the cardstock was sprayed with a color and once they were mostly dry I then sprayed over lightly with tungsten carbide. I like the deep rich colors that were created with the combinations.


I gave this mannequin to Maggi. Even though her birthday isn't until November, I couldn't wait to give this to her. As with the mannequin created for Pea, I used 2 color mists for each side of the cardstock.



















5 comments:

Cheryl Gebhart said...

These mannequins are GORGEOUS!! What lucky friends you have. Can I be your friend too? :)

Carol said...

Very creative. Beautiful colors. Each one is gorgeous.

Rena Sawatski said...

Chrissy, these are gorgeous!! I bet both Pea and Maggi were thrilled with your wonderful unique gift.

If I had to pick a favourite, I think it would be the one you did for Pea, as the colours are so vibrant.

Gerrie Johnnic said...

Absolute genius! hugz...

Autumn Labbe-Renault said...

Lucky Pea & Maggi! Very cool gifts.