Venice project is complete

Now that I have returned from my trips to Paris and Monte Carlo I thought I had better post the final pieces of the Venice project which is now complete.  It totals 106 pieces - much bigger than I had planned.  I have been booked to give a talk on this project and will have a problem trying to compact it into an hour. I have had a couple of ideas but will need to do a trail run to see if they will fit into the hour.
Meanwhile, here are the final pieces.
I had six quilted panels left over from the Ripple art quilt.  When I was printing the panels for the art quilt, I forgot to flip some of them so had to reprint which meant that I had six spare ripple panels. Not wanting to leave them unused, I decided to make one into a small pocket booklet.  Pocket pages were stitched into the quilted ripple cover.

The remaining five were made into needle case books each with a different technique.  Each had felt pages stitched inside.

This one had painted and beaded bronze hinges.

This one used the digitised distorted Venice text.  It was stitched out by the embroidery machine and then outlined with gold Japanese thread.

This one used the mask stamp which I over painted.

This one used a built-in digitised letter in a medieval style.  It was stitched out using a copper/bronze thread.

This one used the capital letters of the name Venice, stencilled and painted.

There was one more needle case which used up the spare printed image of the layer of the Contarini palace.

 

 I used metallic paint to highlight parts of the image.

My final two pieces depict one of the things Venice is famous for -  masks.  I wanted to make a full mask and also an eye mask.  I found a papier maché mask at a local craft shop and so that I could use it again, I decided to make my own paper cast of it.  I covered it with cling film first then applied numerous layers of toilet tissue with PVA.  Once dry it set hard and could be removed from the mold. I gave it a coat of gesso then with metallic paints. I painted the mouth and around the eyes with black paint followed by a coat of interference paint.  These areas were then coated with opal dust which is a thin glue full of tiny mica.  I made the acanthus leaf motifs from pelmet vilene.  They were glued onto the mask and tiny sequins added under one of the eyes.

I made the next eye mask in the same way.  This mask was painted with black gesso and interference paint and then with opal dust.  I outlined the eyes and edges of the mask  with metallic twist. The added decoration was made from pelmet vilene. I painted a wooden kebab stick to match and fastened it to the mask for the handle.

And that completes the project all 106 pieces.

Since completing Venice, I have been back to Paris to finish the photography for the next project which will be, of course, Paris.

Since finishing Venice, I have had a chance to play with some new techniques, use up stored serendipity papers and fabrics and created new art quilts.  They will be featured on the next post.

So until then, Cheers everyone.