Business. A Painted Bag
The project described here was created in 2009. So long ago! Now it’s even strange to remember the “big problem” I had during work. But let me start at the beginning.
That summer I bought a netbook. It was tiny, with a 10-inch screen. I was so happy that completely forgot to buy an important accessory – a bag. So I had to make it myself.
I had denim fabric (I was going to make jeans). The lining is from a suit that is not finished still. But I had to buy polyester batting and paints.
There wasn’t a chance of me making anything usual. The question was how unusual my creation was going to get. At first, I wanted to make a bag in the shape of Appa, the sky bison from “Avatar” (the cartoon series, not the film) but then I would need to make lots of additional details and I wasn’t quite ready for that. Then I remembered my favourite Business – the elephant from “Ilia Muromets and Nightingale Bandit” and sat down to work – downloaded the cartoon onto the new computer and made two sketches:
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| Sketch for the back |
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| Sketch for the front |
The hatching marks the shadows but I completely forgot about most of them later. After the sketch, I created the pattern, cut up the fabric, and sewed two parts of the bag – the outer from denim and the inner from lining and polyester batting.
Finally, the bag was ready.
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| The sewn bag |
Here comes the interesting part. I started with white priming. I didn’t have a real primer so I just painted the bag with white acrylic.
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| Priming the bag |
The most difficult part was transferring the countours from the sketch onto the fabric. I don’t even have photos of this stage – so exhausting it was. I tried to make holes in the paper, make dots through them and then connect them into one line. But the dots were so light that I couldn’t see them.
So I cut up the sketch along the main lines and traced them. At this point, most of the shadows were lost. But I learned my lesson – it’s much easier when you can draw. Now that wouldn’t be a problem at all.
After that, I coloured the drawing. I wanted to make the elephant grey, but they didn’t have black acrylic in the shop so I had to mix up red, green, blue, and white. Hence the elephant is kind of pink.
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| The bag is painted |
When the paint dries up (it takes about ten minutes), it’s time to apply the contour. The picture immediately becomes bright and clear.
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| The back of the finished bag |
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| The front of the finished bag |
The backgrounds are also from the cartoon but are less detailed. Working with acrylic paints is difficult but exciting. For me, it dries a bit too quickly. The painting looks like a mural (I like the uneven edges) and feels like plastic.