The Alice in Wonderland Theatre brought to life

I think Im living my childhood again as Im getting so much pleasure from the project Ive chosen to do.
Exploring the possibilities of making an Alice in Wonderland theatre where enormous fun and have added a little bit of an edge to what Im doing. As I mentioned in my previous post I collected the required elements to make the theatre and with Jims help ~ as I couldnt saw the wood in a straight line ~ we made the theatre from my technical drawing.

And it worked ~ Jim is such a patient and enthusastic husband about anything I do and supports me all the way so it was lovely 'together time' to make the theatre.
If you remember the brainstorming I did at the beginning, the Punch and Judy theatre and black and white checks were two of the links well here I found a way to incorporate them. There was no doubt in my mind the floor of the Theatre would be chequered and as the chess board is refered to in Alice through the Looking Glass I just had to use it here. So I drew out the checks and painstakingly painted the squares by hand ~ brilliant I love the effect.

The front of the theatre was designed around the heart shape and so I cut the design into mat board ~ below is one of the ideas I had but didnt go on to use this heart in red ~ all will be revealed soon. The checks are how I did the floor though.



this is one of my "play pages" which has gone on to become a little Alice in Wonderland book and will give you an idea of the finished colours, the inside is great fun


This was as far as I got for quite a while and I left the theatre and back drop where I could see them to give me ideas of how to finish the front. I pondered over this part more than any other aspect of the theatre I knew I wanted the front to look old and worn but tasteful as this little piece of art is going to be on show in my home so I had to be really pleased with the results. I had been thinking along the lines of using fabric paper and stitching into it or using mixed media with some images digitally enhanced and transfered but this all seemed too much

And then one day it clicked.

I took my mount board and covered it with gesso and crumpled tissue paper ~we've been covering texture in class ~ it needed to be really fine texture so the tissue had to be worked in really well, I incorporated the heart and topiary rose bushes (from my brainstorming exercise) using papiere mache and some other swirls and then sanded it all 'till I was happy. It was then covered in gallons of gesso; really expensive stuff 'cause I wanted it to be the best it could be and then I started painting on layers and layers of 'Golden' acrylic paint mixing the colours as I went along ~ until I stood back and thought ~ 'thats it'. All I have to do now is add a little gold wax here and there.

Whilst this work was progressing along nicely I had an email on my other blog asking me to join in a little challenge ~ you can probably see where the influence came from for the Little Fairy Princess.


I've been making alot of felt flowers for clients and mushrooms for another project I have on going, along side the theatre project, so it seemed only right to include the felted mushroom and the chequered floor in this little piece of mixed media art under glass.







And so now here you can see a little peep of the Alice in Wonderland Theatre and the backdrop but theres is still more to come, quite alot more infact ............................................. curious and curiouser, well there's Alice, and there's flamingos and there's trees and doors .................................... and dont you just love the whole surrealness of Alice I do.

The Australia wall hanging is now finished

the Australia wall hanging is now finished and will be photographed in full in May when it hangs in the exhibition, soooooo exciting. But for now here is some of the work which bought me to the finished piece.
paper collage

paper collage

paper collage

markal paint sticks with a stencil cut from freezer paper

paper collage with words printed onto old brown envelopes

Sample Piece using
strips of fabrics ~ sheers, organza, hand dyed cottons

above is the front cover and below the back cover of the sketch book which goes with the Australia wall hanging and shows some of the techniques I used, painted bondaweb, painted vilene, layers of sheers, Stewart Gill chips, hand printed organdie, free machine embroidery using different threads all worked on hand dyed cotton fabric

close up detail

Australia Panel

do you remember all those papers I painted? well here is the next process in my developement of my wall panel. I was really happy with the papers and so tore the papers to create different collages until I was happy with the results




notes on the wall panel




possible layout
The more I played with the papers the more the ideas seemed to flow, until I felt I had enough to work with ~ here are the three pieces I have chosen ~ the panels will be separated with cotton organdie or scrim with trapped words; memories etc


Now I had to figure how to get the colours and textures of the papers onto fabric. I started by mixing up dylon dyes and did sample tests on a variety of fabrics








I also tested liquid acrylics on fabric


I painted bondaweb to create texture on the surface of the dyed or painted fabric


and finally some possible quilting and sewing lines

***********************Update***************************

The fabric is dyed and painted and already in three separate quilted pieces~ today I have printed my words and memories onto cotton organdie ~ wow super expensive ~ but necessary as it has good 'body'. And now Im off to work on the panel again.