"Troisième Presenting" a Canvas Diptych - Peacock & Ballet Inspired

Good morning everyone!  Today I am very excited to show you a painting project.

My daughter is my biggest fan to say the least. She makes me smile, giggle, feel loved and I adore her like any mother would. I have been wanting to do an art piece for quite some time for her room that she could keep forever. We are military so painting her walls is something she can't keep with her.

"Troisième Presenting"

An Acrylic Painting with Pastels on Canvas

Troisième Presenting 2' x 4' (Click on image to see larger)

This painting was inspired by my daughter, her face, her body, her eyes and her passions. She loves to dance and for almost two years now she has loved peacocks and everything that has to do with peacocks. It started with a Peacock Princess Costume for Halloween in 2012. Then her love for the bird and colors moved into making Peacock Ornaments for her little Christmas tree she gets to keep in her room. I started to see a trend in her clothing choices from pink to peacock colors as well. In 2014 her birthday party was an international theme with the focus on India and the colors of a peacock. Now we have moved to a new home, in a new state and one thing we did for the kids was let them redecorate their rooms to help them get excited about our family's transition. Can you guess what she chose? She calls it...

 "Vintage Peacock" 

Troisième Presenting Diptych Piece #1

Troisième Presenting Diptych Piece #2

This painting was created to go in her room, solely inspired by her. It is called "Troisième Presenting" because her arms are in the third position for ballet (bringing in her love for dance) and the representation of a peacock plumage in all it's glory with the hair, peacock feather stencils from The Crafters Workshop, the colors chosen and the peacock feather in her hair.

Close Up of "Troisième Presenting"

My daughter had input through almost every step of the process this piece went though. She even made the suggestion to lightly color in the eyes to match hers, a beautiful light blue.

"Troisième Presenting" close up of half of face

The peacock thing has gotten out of control here, but out of control is how we have fun in our family. I too went as a peacock for Halloween the following year using her tail we extended with longer feathers. I have made a Peacock Tutu Halloween Costume with coordinating hair piece. I have made an adult sized peacock tail for a local art gallery owner. Her peacock costume inspired an entire altered dress, pair of wings and a peacock crown that was created for +Elena Lai Etcheverry at +Charity Wings for the Live Stream from CHAW (The Winter Craft and Hobby Association Trade Show). The Peacock Couture Outfit was again used during the CHA Gift Lounge at the 64th Emmy Awards. It is currently entered into a craft awards called "The Craftys". You can go vote for it there though the 26th of May.

I created this piece while taking two online Bloom Girl classes from Jamie Dougherty. They were her Bloom Girl Workshop 2 class and her Bloom Girl Elements class. I highly recommend +Jamie Dougherty 's classes. She gives thorough instructions and support. She teaches how to use acrylic paints, PanPastels, India Ink and other products properly within her project.

Thank you all for your time. If you desire to learn how to make such a project then please check out these classes. I would love to know your thoughts about this project as well, please be so kind to leave me a comment below and follow me here on my blog or on Facebook on my artist page L. Grace Lauer Artist.

Mixed Media Artist and Paper Crafter
Coordinator for Party Time Tuesdays Challenge Blog

Peacock Crafty Couture - Altered Dress, Crown, Wings & Articulated Tail

What better way to make a statement then a Peacock Couture Dress? There are so many parts and details to this Crafty Couture project I can't even try to share them all with you. This will be a fun photo heavy post so enjoy the eye candy.

The Dress

Tulip Fabric Paints, from I Love to Create were sued to distress the dress and to create a henna, mehendi inspired motif.

  

The Sash/pendant was created with May Arts Ribbons, Prima Marketing Flowers and peacock feathers. Held together with Helmar Adhesives.

Finished Sash/Pendant

 

Close up of the sash/pendant on the dress.

The Wings

The base of the wings were created with PVC piping and a custom harness so they float on the back of the person wearing them, they are not tied on in any way. Makes for a comfortable piece that is able to be worn all day without any strain on the shoulders, skin, or even back.

The harness was created in two parts. One part is very easily built into any dress or corset. This harness base is padded and can be worn all day. The second part is what the wings are build off of. This part slides into the base for a quick and easy dress/undress with the wings.

The wing decoration was created mainly with  May Arts Ribbons (some hand cut into gold feathers), feathers and Prima Marketing Flowers.

This photo is the back of the wings.

 

Details of the center back

Here is the front.

 The Articulated Tail

The tail was engineered with my own design. It moved freely to be fanned out like a live peacock on display then to lay down the back of the dress in a resting position like a dress train. It works with the pull of two strings. It was created with up-cycled items, netting, hardware and over 300 peacock feathers. Accented with May Arts Ribbons, Prima Marketing Flowers . 

 

Close up of the details on the back of the tail when open.

Close up of the top of the tail with the many smaller feathers.

 

The Crown

The crown consists of bits of metal Prima Marketing  findings, some Prima Marketing Flowers and a few wisps of gems on a string from May Arts Ribbons. 

 

Photo of the crown while adhesives were drying prior to shaping. 

 

The Entire Peacock Couture Creation: 

 

The outfit was created for Elena, from Charity Wings Art Center. She hosts a Live from CHA show every CHA event! 

The work being done over at Charity Wings Art Center is fantastic please make sure you check out their webstie and join up as a member for online classes and to help support the arts!

I hope you enjoyed this post and project details Have a wonderful day!. Have a wonderful day!

Please go vote for this project at The Craftys under Home Decor/DIY category. Don't forget to enter your project today, there are many categories!

 

Please see more of our costumes in the following links:

Angel Warrior with Articulated Wings
Jack Skellington  - Disney's Nightmare Before Christmas Puppet Costume

Parks and Recreation's Leslie Knope Wedding Gown Tutorial

Moon/Lunar Fairy - with articulated wings

Tron Lightcycle
Peacock Princess with articulated tail
Iron Man - 3D
3D Paper Doll Ballerina
Literary Work of Art

 

Coordinator at Party Time Tuesdays

Grace at the CHA Connected Gift Lounge for the 65th Emmy Awards

What an exciting weekend! I was honored to have my Peacock Crafty Couture dress worn by the lovely Elena Lai Etcheverry from Charity Wings as she interviewed (Charity Wings YouTube Channel to see the highlights and interviews) the stars at the CHA Connected Gift Lounge for the 65th Emmy Awards weekend.

 AJ McLean from the Backstreet Boys  (with Elena, Myself and Audrey)

 Omar Dorsey from Django Unchained with his
daughter Olympia (Myslef and Elena in the center)

 Makai Phipher and I

 Niel Flynn and I

 Jay Harrington and I

Corey Feldman  Elena and I

Corey has a modeling agency called Corey's Angles and he had to add the wings to his model that was escorting him to our event.

Instructions for this peacock tail can be purchased through my Etsy store: Uniquely Grace

OR it can be special ordered fully constructed child size on my Etsy store: Uniquely Grace

For an Adult size please contact me for a special order. (Prices will vary due to height desired.)

Certified Helmar Educator

Upcycling Wine Bottles Creating Centerpieces

Upcycling is all the rage these days for many reasons, it brings a whole new meaning to "One man's trash is another man's treasure." You can save money on supplies and decor. Help the landfill issues and reduce you carbon footprint. No matter what your reason to reduce, recycle or reuse if you are going to make something beautiful from junk then you need to have the proper adhesives. Check out these center pieces I created from wine bottles for a local fundraiser event.

To read more about these projects and a tutorial please click on this link...

Upcycling Wine Bottles - Decorating on a Dollar with Helmar

via helmarusa.typepad.com

Certified Helmar Educator

Peacocks for Christmas? Ornaments? Tree Topper and more?

Yes... I actually had the idea this year to create the window display in my little book store I work with and then someone told me "Peacocks and Christmas, those don't go together!". I should know better than to let someone squash my artistic vision too quickly... BECAUSE this season... PEACOCKS are EVERYWHRE... yes ... especially for CHRISTMAS! Pier1, Walmart, Michael's, Marshalls and other stores are decorating for this holiday in blues, teals greens and dark golds, mimicking the peacocks and feather type ornaments are all over the shelves... should have stuck with my gut. UGH!

Yet... prior to seeing these everywhere my daughter decided (about 9pm on Halloween night) she wanted a peacock tree in her room this holiday season. Making Ornaments is a tradition in our house... this year is the "year of the Peacock" according to my daughter who now want's everything Peacock. We discussed it some more and this is what we came up with.

Ornament #1: Helmar Gemstone Glue with a fine tip applicator was used to draw and glitter the eye feather on the outside of the ornament. 

Ornament #2: Helmar Premium Craft Glue was used along the back to glue all the pieces to the gold plaster filigrees.

Ornament #3: No adhesives used

Tree Topper plans: We bought one large clip on peacock bird ornament and we will be adding more feathers and some floral picks to spruce it up.

I will post more as we get the tree up and decorated after Thanksgiving. Hope you all have a wonderful Sunday! Thanks for checking out my blog. Leave a message in the comments below. I love hearing if people like my work. If you have a question please make sure you leave an email for me to answer. Thanks!Fallow me here ---------------------------------------------------------------->

Helmar Educator - Education Team

Pretty Peacock Princess (with real working peacock tail) - Halloween Costume

This pretty Peacock Princess costume was designed and dreamed up by my 7 year old daughter. She sat down and drew up the design for her entire costume. She made the tutu, her choker necklace and decorated her trick or treating bag and gloves. Did I mention she is7?

"A real working peacock tail" was her vision. She wanted it to trail on the ground behind her and be able to be lifted up and fan out like a real peacock. Tall order, for a 7 year old. But in our house... maybe not...

Here it is in action!!!! Check out this video!

To have me help walk you though creating this step by step please see my tutorial on Etsy. It comes with full customer support in a group on FB allowing quick and fast communication and responses to your questions.

Research was done for many hours online and I never found what I was looking for to engineer this tail they were all stationary either up or down. So I had to engineer it myself, after all it's not the first time I have made costume pieces with moving parts (Angel wings, Transformer costume). After some discussions with the Hubby about the mechanics, we figured it out how to make it work. The tail is 66" wide... that is 1.5' wider then my daughter is tall!

 

I made the crown after she figured out which of her crowns in her dress up drawer she wanted to use. 

It was put together with none other then my favorite fast drying adhesive, Helmar 450 Quick Dry. Trinity also used it on her necklace to glue down the Velcro in the back and the large gem in the center and to attach the bows and trim to her gloves. There is no doubt she is definitely my daughter, no doubt about it! She also loves her Helmar too!

I have to mention while looking at these closeups... the shawl she is waring was made for me by my loving little sister. She knitted this for as my Matron of honor gift for her wedding. She is very crafty with yarns and fabrics. Check out her out on Facebook, Quilt Shakti. 

The obvious choice was to have it pulled back. We did a sweeping french braid from the front left to the back right. Touching it all up with streaks of turquoise blue.
Next we researched her makeup and she decided on a simple eyeshadow technique. I wanted more costume type makeup. In the end she was right. Just enough to make her look like an exotic bird and not to much to hide her innocence she still has at age seven.
She won first place in the costume contest for the girl's age group at our local city event "Scarysville" My son won his boy section for his age group too with his handmade Iron Man costume.
Here is one last look at the front of the costume. She had a blast as her dream of a "Peacock Princess".

 Which of our costumes did you like this year? Peacock Princess or Iron Man costume? Comment below or on my other post to let me know!

UPDATE:

You can order these in my Esty Shop for children sizes or you can special order adult sizes too. 

This item in an adult size was worn to the 65th Emmy Awards CHA Connected Gift Lounge. (Click on the link for more photos of this event.)

Please see more of our costumes in the following links:

Angel Warrior with Articulated Wings
Jack Skellington  - Disney's Nightmare Before Christmas Puppet Costume

Parks and Recreation's Leslie Knope Wedding Gown Tutorial

Moon/Lunar Fairy - with articulated wings

Tron Lightcycle
Peacock Princess with articulated tail
Iron Man - 3D
3D Paper Doll Ballerina
Literary Work of Art