Gustav Klimt had a "golden period" and it was my favorite. I am absolutely fascinated by the bold colors that he used. He also added jewels which for embellishment purposes is right up my alley. For our 3D design class we had to take a 2D image and turn it into a relief. I chose a portion of the Stoclet Frieze. You may remember me dying my own wool a while back! This is 24" X 36" and took approximately 5 weeks to finish. Wool is not as easy to work with as fabric and due to the thickness of this piece, it was a challenge with my felting machine.
I used two types of wool carded and scoured. Carded wool has been processed. It has a soft texture and is really soft to the touch. Many posts back I talked about Rug Works, and they sold scoured wool. That is wool taken directly off the sheep and then washed and bleached. It is then dyed. This wool retains the curls from the sheep. Carded wool actually is the step that occurs after the scouring and has a very finished look.
The woman's face was hand painted using fabric paint and a very tiny brush.
The piece is embellished with beads, buttons, and colored foil. All of the embellishments are hand sewn and that is what contributed to most of the time. Below is taken from the Gustav Klimt website describing this mosaic. It was completed near the end of his life as he passed in 1918.
"The Stoclet Frieze is a series of three mosaics created by Austrian painter Gustav Klimt for a 1905-1911 commission for the Palais Stoclet in Brussells. The panels depict swirling Tree of life|Trees of life, a standing female figure and an embracing couple. The mosaics are spread across three walls of the Palais' dining room, with the two larger, figural sections set opposite each other on the longer walls of the room. A smaller, geometric panel occupies the short wall separating them. The designs are formed from a variety of luxury materials, including marble, ceramic, gilded tiles and enamel along with pearls and other semi-precious stones."Taken from www.klimt.com