Matisse T (and Bonus Eye Candy)

I've become quite enchanted by Henri Matisse since reading Hilary Spurling's wonderful 2 volume biography of him. She vindicates him on the sexist pig front, but more amazingly, brings out what a huge influence textiles had on his art. And his colour sense is astonishing.
So, for the latest Whiplash contest, I decided to create a t-shirt based on the 1947 painting "Palmette", which uses vivid magenta pink on an orange ground.

I used two old plain t-shirts in pink and orange, realising that the two colours create a visual dissonance and have to be just the right distance apart on the colour wheel. Luckily the ones I had were workable. I drew several shapes a la Matisse and when I had what I thought would work, traced them on to Heat'n'Bond. I made the front design different from the back. My pink shirt had a better fit, so I switched the colour arrangement and ironed the design onto the orange shirt. Cut out the shapes, found a placement I liked and bonded them onto the pink shirt.



At this point I saw that the shapes didn't stand out quite enough, so I chose some rich brown embroidery floss and sewed a simple running stitch around the edges. This took a little longer than I thought, but I put the DVD of Casanova on and had a very enjoyable time sewing. (I recommend the movie, I mean my god it's Venice, the cinematography is glorious, the costumes sumptuous, and Heath Ledger is extremely easy on the eyes.)





This should go in the embellish/decorate category.