sometimes the ideas work out perfectly,

other times, not so much.

The idea was, make a tattooed man using toile. I scored a great selection of toile scraps at a swap I did with some fellow Boston Etsy people.

93man.jpg

note to self- check to see if decorator fabric has been Scotchgarded, before using on a project that includes dyeing/painting the finished piece. hmph.

Maybe you can’t tell from the photo, but the color went on unevenly and worse, the fabric looked scabby after the paint dried. Yuck. Since I knew I wasn’t satisfied with it, I thought I might as well see what I could do to make it better.

First, I put him through a gentle cycle in the washing machine. That made the texture better and the blotchiness worse. So, I stuck him in a bucket of dye for a soak…

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then, another trip through the wash, and out to dry-

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He is still as blotchy as ever, and somewhat misshapened. Not out of shape- I mean he is clearly in great shape! His head is lumpy as you can see.
93back.jpg

I’m not quite sure where I will go next with him, but I have now dyed a selection of fabrics to try again with.

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and another thing…

Fresh peaches are one of my all time favorite seasonal treats-

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well, and then we ate it!

22 thoughts on “sometimes the ideas work out perfectly,

  1. I like him! You know, sometimes those old sailor types actually start getting a bit lumpy as they lose muscle tone. The tattoo/toile idea is a great one.

  2. I think I’ve seen my father actually has some lumpy muscle back his neck…he’s say he is TOO strong

  3. I am with you on how ideas sometimes don’t quite work out. I did one project starting out as a cat and ended up as a girl. Go figure. I don’t know how you came up with the idea of a tatoo fella’ but it’s so unexpected, especially using toile fabric as the tatoo. LA INK move over! thanks for sharing (and for the delicious peach pie pic!)

  4. What an absolutely brilliant idea to use toile for tattooed skin! I love it. Your pie is gorgeous and is inspiring me to run to the farmer’s market tomorrow to grab some of the remaining peaches. As always, I really appreciate you sharing your work process. This particular post is a good reminder to me to not get so frustrated when things don’t turn out as I originally envision them.

  5. i’m impressed with your stick-to-it-ness…i probably would have thrown in the towel loooooong ago…but then i’m just trusting you that he’s all splotchy, because he looks quite dashing to me

  6. Pingback: Doll » Blog Archive » tattoo man 2

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