Wearable Art for a Juried Show

A couple of months ago I decided to enter a juried show at Jacoby Arts Center in Alton, IL.  Look this place up - IT'S GREAT!
Since my skill is in clothing construction I decided to do some wool felting and in some fashion, manipulate it into coat.  A coat makes a pretty good backdrop for surface designing and I love art to wear.
I started by felting or fulling 100% wool tweed.  When that was prepared I cut the 2 shades into 1/2" strips then pinned them to a board and wove the strips into a herringbone design.
For the back of the coat I cut the woven piece - a really BIG piece - on the bias.  The extra pieces were used for cuffs and an accent piece on the front.  I used lots of piping.  Gotta love piping!
I'll type more later...

Piasa Bird continues...

Here is a good side view of how the wood is setting on the frame.  I've put this on several times and had other put it on and it's really comfortable and not heavy.

Here is a side look at the skeleton.  More pieces will be added.  The strange shape at the top is the "spine".  Joe is shaping it to fit down the middle for additional support.

Partial foam core, partial plywood - skeleton in progress.

This is my carpeter and brother, Joe Guccione.  After I assembled the skeletal structure from foam core and attached it to an external back back frame, Joe took the whole thing, cut it from light weight plywood and attached it onto te frame.

www.lillianbydesign.com

Piasa Bird

The Piasa Bird has a beard or ruff under the chin.  There have been many renditions by artists so if you're interested in the variety of transformations of our great Bird just type it into the net and you'll get all the info.  As for the beard, I have dyed 3 mop heads after I took them apart.  I used black and brown, allowing some to remain in the dye bath longer than others in order to achieve a variety of shades and depth.

This is my greatest fan, my love and husband Corey.  Only he would be goofy for me!

Piasa Bird



The eyes will be glued, stitched and sculpted into place. 



These are the eyes for the Piasa Bird

Piasa Bird

I started with the teeth by using clay formed onto a wire armature.  After they clay dried I covered them in plaster casting, then painted.

Alright, first real blog! Well, Southwestern High School, Jerseyville, IL has contracted with me to create their mascot costume, the Piasa Bird. If you are not familiar with the Piasa (pie-a-saw) Bird legend - look it up! It's a great story. After studying him for a while now, I'm sure he was a reptile of some kind, a dragon of sorts.

This is an image of the Piasa Bird on the bluff walls in Alton, IL.  

An image of the Southwestern High School rendition.