Body sculpture design

 

Recently I've been experimenting with dyeing light habotai silk with natural dyes. Using Alum Mordant as a dye fix. I've bought three dyes to try for the time being: Cochineal, Weld and Logwood which create reds, yellows and purples. From this I hope to follow on to experiment with the more complex Indigo dyeing.

I decided to use natural dyes as my piece's structure base is made with the use of plastic strips usually used for wrapping parcels. So to contrast with this man-made, artificial element I decided that using natural materials in conjunction with this may compliment eachother well.

I chose to use silk as in the early stages of the designing of this piece I was experimenting with shirring chiffon and loved the outcomes, but as I wanted to use natural dyes - silk seemed to be the natural fabric that shared simiar properties to the chiffon, as natural dyes evidently work on natural fabric and fibres.

 

Taking my structural element into context, I began experimenting with triangular components on the mannequin, keeping my metal project in mind also, considering these models as statement neck pieces.

Stage 1

I began taking photographs at different stages of my construction, to perhaps develop certain aspects of the design, and see whether the piece worked better at different stage of the making rather than the end outcome.

 

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 4

Back of the piece, low cut back.

Detail of the front of the piece