DIY Cheeky Roses
 

I have a departure from my regular construction photo journal this time. I'm starting with the completed work. I am entering this in a local art exhibition, and I'd like your input on which images you find most interesting, most appealing. As a piece of 3D art, I'm permitted to submit three images to give the judges a better idea about the piece (it might be four, I'm not sure yet).

I'll also have to compose a description and an artist's bio, those are in progress as well. I also have to submit a price for this piece which is very problematic for me. You see, it was conceived as a gift to my girlfriend for Valentine's Day. She's already seen it, and we talked about submitting it for exhibition. But it's not really for sale. I did take it down to a local store where I'm friends with the owners and she said she'd price it at about $400. I was surprised, but that makes my labor rate preeeettty low, not to mention materials. Anyhow. I might just put a $10,000 price tag on it, and if it sells, we'll celebrate a late Valentine's Day in Vegas.

The title of this piece is Cheeky Roses.

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The other three photos I'm considering:

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I think pics 1 and 3 or 4 are best.
The closed and then the open showing the beautiful work inside...

Awesome job!

You kinky devil sarge! Very well made and well conceived, too.

I like the wrapped-up, unwrap-for-surprise sequence.

I agree, and I liked seeing the heart-shaped lock

I also felt that pic # 6 (held in the hand) was not a well-made pic,
but was useful because it showed the scale. Maybe a re-make would be helpful.

Not really my thing , but well and artfully done , Cool idea
Good luck in the comp !

i say pic 134 in that order

I think you've got the wrong Big, Zen.

now, you wouldn't actually USE that cat of 9 roses, would you? doesn't look like it would sting very much...

Reeeeeaaally digging the flail/cat o'ninetails deal.

Very cool.

Kinky roses. Nicely done! Very cheeky.

Agree with other about the progression from closed in the "vase" to open. Unless it's a very special kind of art exhibition, the shots where the handle of the flogger is less prominent might be more successful.

I find the shot that best shows the leaves where you can literally SEE that they are leather should be used.

I think you're right. :blush:

Thanks guys!

Some answers, here we go.

I don't know how important it is to convey the scale here. It's clear it's a flogger, so it is sized for one handed use... I also like having some known quantity in the photo for scale, but .. crap. I just don't know. I have LOTS (as you will soon see) of pictures of this project, and some of these same poses but just on my regular work table. I took a folded sheet (you can still see the wrinkles) from the closet for a drop cloth. Bright sunshine through the nearby window plus a little fill flash. I'm trying hard to make it attractive. It's already as interesting as it's gonna be, so.. whatever.

jim's right Zen, I'm V, not sarge, but thank you just the same, sir. :)

jim--I would use it, I have used it, in testing, not in earnest. It is made to be used, but I'm sure it will spend most of its time as an art object sitting on her desk. It is pretty heavy, and I made the handle big and heavy (scale pics to come). The whole affair weighs over three and a half pounds. It is NOT stingy, but it does have a very satisfying thud. For the record, there are thirteen roses, including the one black one, not nine.

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I am also wondering how it will be displayed at the show in the event it is selected by the jury. A common way of dealing with floggers when they're not in one's hand is to hang it by the wrist strap. Which I did not include, and may not include. I don't think hanging is a very flattering display of this piece. It is really unlikely that I'll be swinging it with such enthusiasm that a wrist strap would be an important safety consideration. So, no wrist strap. I'm thinking it will be on a draped cloth and perhaps on a block of some kind. I like some of the poses here. I am open to the idea that it can be picked up and handled by the people taking in the exhibit. It is, after all, a sensual experience for both. It feels good in the hand though I don't want any flogging to take place in the show. Think of how you'd feel the texture of a garment in a store. Like that. Right now, I imagine it will be displayed without the plain brown leather wrapper. That is intended to make it decent for public exhibition. I don't consider this show "public" in the same way.

I meant to add information about the show! I am submitting this to the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival for 2012. The link is NSFW. It's not trashy (not that there's anything wrong with that...) but there are nipples people. Nipples! You have been warned. Here is a link with information about submissions of Visual Art.

As you all know, I'm a maker. This has been my most detailed and labor intensive project to date. I'm exctied. I'll post the construction journal as soon as I get the pictures organized into an album.

How bout using a real rose laid next to or across it for scale?
Maybe a wine glass with this wrapped around the base ...

So, it is a "special" kind of art show ... then yes, showing off the floggyness is a key to your artistic vision. I thought it was going to be looked at by mundies. Silly me.

wolf, it most definitely is a very special kind of art exhibition, so the handle is entirely appropriate.

I have looked through the catalogs of the last three years' shows and found only one piece that was principally made of leather. Lots of pictures with leather, sure. I did find some toys like this, a basswood paddle for example, maybe others.

Thanks for the suggestion that I make clear that the leaves, too, are made of leather. I think I'll have to take some more photographs. I don't know if the pictures in the catalogs are the ones used for submission to the judges. For objects, they seem to have been very deliberately posed, and all on some kind of background. I saw some where the background was white and so over exposed that it just vanished, like the piece is floating in air. I don't think that suits for this one. It has texture and that means shadows.

I'm pretty happy with it. They **do** look like roses, don't they? :D

Heh... the mundies (?!) will view it on her desk at her office. Safely secured (that's a real lock) in a discrete plain brown (leather) wrapper. What they don't know, etc etc.

The sting is all in the swing I do believe. A lot of power can make anything hurt when it hits. :blush:

I like this idea very much ...


... followed by this one.

What about a backdrop that would emphasize the pain/pleasure, soft/hard, fragile/strong aspects of the piece? Maybe a polished piece of chrome with lace laid across it and this arranged on top? Or a granite podium sitting on a piece of black velvet and the creation slowly unfolded across it? If the show consists of only photographs of the item, maybe some artistic spotlighting, or blurring?

I dunno, can't look at the show link from work, so no idea how these things are usually displayed.

In any case, I really like your work! Much nicer than the plain old bullwhip and crop I have.

I was thinking about the frightfully clever on many levels name of this piece the other day. It's brilliant!

Thanks limey! It's gratifying to find someone who finds me as dazzlingly clever as I do!

Here's my construction journal. It's the director's cut, meaning little was actually cut. Not true, fewer than half the pictures I took are included in this DIY story. Here we go.

I made a template of the petals so I could trace out some fairly regular petals over and over again, so I'd have fairly regular flowers.
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Twelve of them were done in red leather. This shot only shows some of the tracings. I'd made the first few flowers freehand. They turned out on the small side, so I made these petals a lot bigger.Attachment 37717


The extra relief at the intersection of the petals in this detail shot allows the bottom of the flower to be more compact. There will be a stack of these petals for each flower.
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The thirteenth rose is a black one.
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I didn't read the text - are those what drives you motorboat?

Motorboat, motorboat.

Snip snip snip!

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Stack stack stack!

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Roses have sepals too! (insert groan here).

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Bend it over...

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Snip a hole for the stem.

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I cut all of these freehand. They are highly variable across the bouquet.

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It looks like a frog. Ribbitt!

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I did the same with the leaves as I did with the petals. I cut the first ones freehand to get a feel for how I wanted them to look and adjusted accordingly for the bulk of the flowers.

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I calculated about seven leaves per stem.

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Sometimes the cutting got a little creative, but since most of the thread connecting the leaves would be woven inside the stems, this didn't seem important.

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Here's how I lined up all the leaves for each of the remaining flowers to be made.

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Remember that scene from American Beauty where a cloud of red rose petals rained down on the girl... that's a LOT of rose petals. So is this. Whew.

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Stack stack stack.

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Petal towers with sepal steeples.

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This is a bundle of stems. I made the first one with just brown, then switched to green and brown. A big improvement. Two laces, each 1/8" wide (square actually, 1/8" wide by 1/8" thick) and six feet long for each stem.

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Now, let's make a rose. Start by crossing one green and one brown lace at the center.

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Now I add the petals.

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And more petals.

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Now add the sepals. Since the sepals surround the stem, I have to thread the stem strands onto it.

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Slide it up and up.

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Now it's at the base of the blossom.

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Pull the stem strands tight.

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And fold up the petals tightly.

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Now, let's make the actual rose bud / blossom. Take the smallest, innermost petal and roll it tightly, as tightly as you can.

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Fold up another petal and wrap it tightly around the previous petal(s).

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Repeat this process for petal after petal. It is important to move the point at which the petal starts to wrap to a different spot each time so you get a staggered arrangement of the petals.

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As you approach the outermost few petals, you'll see they don't wrap around the whole blossom, as they don't on a real rose. They kind of cup the inner part of the flower. To keep the petal clinging tightly to the inner petals, I use a bit of superglue. Mind your ears.

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Eventually this is what the completed rose looks like.

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Very, very cool.

Same one, rotated a bit. I used different pieces of leather, with different dyes and slightly different textures for the red roses. I like the variability it brought to the flowers. A little bit of leather anti-aliasing, if you will.

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Now I will show you how to make the stems of the roses. This is a lot of braiding, I will try to show the move, then just repeat it until your fingers fall off or you run out of leather. This braid is called a four-strand round braid without a core. When the flower was begun, there was one green and one brown lace crossed at the center. They come out of the bottom of the rose and I arrange them with two on the left and two on the right. This arrangement is constant throughout the braiding process.

On each side there an outer strand and an inner strand. This braid works the outer strand, always. It alternates from one side to the other, but you're always manipulating the outer strand. This is the starting position Please notice the INNER two strands have been crossed. This is an arbitrary choice, obviously they've not been "braided" but they'll be the seed for how each of the subsequent strands lie in the braid.

Notice the brown lace on the inside, the lace closest to the camera. It has "finished" its swing and landed hanging to the left. That means the next strand will finish hanging to the right.

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I pick the OUTER strand on the right side, swing it behind the braid (here comes the trick to be repeated forever) under the first (outer) one and over the next (inner) one, ...

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... ending hanging to right. meaning the next one will finish hanging to the left, so I take this OUTER strand on the left, behind the braid, under the first/outer strand it meets...
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so I take this OUTER strand on the left, behind the braid, under the first/outer strand it meets...

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and back OVER the next/inner one it meets,...

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.... pulled tightly, hanging to the left. If you look now, I've done one strand from each side and the braid looks exactly like it did before I began. The inner two are crossed with the top one hanging to the left.

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Like I said, I took a lot of pictures. Here's a collage of this very braid with each strand being manipulated then pulled tight. After a couple inches, I thread into the mix a strand of leaves, snugging the base of the leaf tightly into the weave. Seriously? This was many, many hours of braiding.

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Eventually, you get to the point where one of the strands doesn't have enough length to keep braidng. I snugged the strands tight (a different braid, the name escapes me now, but it's the same one you use for making keychain doodles from gimp.)

Congratulate yourself.

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Then get back to work.

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Eventually, you get a bouquet looking bunch of individual roses. I wrapped them up in this gorgeous brown piece of leather like a bunch of flowers from the florist, and I gave them to her like this. But I wasn't done yet.

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I had intended to make a flogger all along, and I decided I needed a handle with some heft to it. The leather is heavy and a heavy handle would give it some balance. I had an idea that a flexible handle would be interesting. I went to Goodwill and bought a pair of ankle weights, the squishy neoprene kind. This particular set had a double ring of weight. I wanted to change it from a ring to a straight segment, but I could tell all the filling would spill out if I just cut it. So I sewed a pair of seams across the weight.

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Then I cut the neoprene between the seams.

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I only spilled a little of the contents. I bet this looks familiar now, doesn't it? I thought it would be sand, rock is heavy, dense material, right? Well, so is iron. This stuff looks like the spatter from welding or cutting. I don't know the name for this material, but it is easy to clean up with a magnet. And it's heavy. And it's a way to make money from what would otherwise be waste material. Kind of like the big bags of "free sawdust" I saw outside a local cabinetmaker's shop yesterday. (Yeah, I'm wondering what I can do with a few cubic yards of white pine sawdust... soil amendment?)

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Here we see the beginning of the handle construction. I bound up the stems with tape and wire. You can see I tried to make the weight the core of the handle.

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The length looks ok.

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Here I've bound it all up so I can wrap it.

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See how junky this looks? I'll tell you now. I didn't know it at the time I took these pictures, but alllll this work would be undone.

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It was just too uneven.

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Too lumpy.

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Some sides looked ok.

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And some camera angles were more favorable than others.

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Ok, that purty leather wrap? Now I decided to cut it up and make it the wrap for the handle. Here I'm measuring for length and circumference (of the handle).

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Snip snip.

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Perhaps you could use it for oil spill absorbent.

This is what I got at the end.

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Fweeee! The beginning of a round braid of six thongs.

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Once I got the wrap on the stems, it then became clear I'd need to undo some of that braiding. **SIGH**

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I tied each braid off TWICE 1/4" apart with waxed thread, using surgeon's knots. I damn sure didn't want these things coming unthreaded. That would be... bad.

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Then I began to unbraid the strands of the stems just up to the ligatures.

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Now I had a much finer handful of strands to surround my handle core. I tied this bundle up too, and carefully straightened the strands, minimizing the crossings. One thing that is NOT visible here is how I snugged the core up tight to the top of the handle. I took a couple strands and tied them around the bottom of the weight. When I pulled the strands tight, it drew the weight up very tightly to the top. I put a square knot in these strands and then draped the remaining ones along the length, just as you see here. The white threads are tight too. The core is pretty secure.

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I rolled this core against the table to make it rounder. I actually put it on the floor and rolled it under my foot too, but no pictures of that. Since the core isn't round (it's a kind of figure eight in cross section, remember?) but it is filled with moveable material. This really smoooooths out the contour of the core/strands for a nice round handle.

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Rolling...

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Rolling...

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Rolling...

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Purty, no? :)

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Ok, this is the beginning of a turk's head that covers the top of the handle wrap at the transition between the handle wrap and the falls of the stems. Forgive me, I can't remember the number of turns and bights for this knot. Like a lot of this project, what you're seeing here is just the last try. I redid this knot a few times.

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Wow! It looks like you have a lot of time invested in this project. You have much patience.

I started it OFF the handle, and then put it on the handle for more weaving and tightening.

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Scooting it up the stems.

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Levering it up over the tops of the wrap thongs with my fid.

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Now I have the turk's head mostly in the right spot. I like the look of this knot with three passes. As the knot became fuller with more and more passes it became harder to thread the end of the lace through the knot. Here you can see the very end as I complete the last section that has only two passes with the third and final pass. I'll bury the end of this pass under the knot.

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The next few shots show me opening up the space,

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putting the end of the lace into the spot,

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gripping it with my pliers

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and tugging it through.

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I needed to make this knot tight and neat. It is one continuous lace, and making it tight is kind of like tightening the laces on your hightop sneakers. You get a little bit of slack down by the toe, pull it up one eyelet at a time until you get to the top. I did the same here, picking an arbitrary piece in the middle-ish, tugging it out, pulling it through the next bight, and repeating the process many times. I was very careful to have the lace lie flat everywhere, no twists, and even tension throughout. Patience and neatness really count here.

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More tightening

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more tightening,

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getting close...

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Eventually, the knot turned out like this. (hahahaha I crack me up, I see what I did thar.)

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Now to the handle wrap. Once again, this was an iterative process. I made that little fringe of six strips, remember? Turns out it was too wide. So I cut the thongs apart and then made them narrower so their combined width was equal to the circumference of the handle. Like the round braids for the stems/falls, this braid has half the thongs/strand on each side. This has a core, and the falls had none, of course.

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Here is the page I worked from. Clear, right? It is pretty clear actually.

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Just like the other braid, I take the outermost thong, behind the braid, then over, under, over.

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Switch sides, repeat.

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Hm.. feels good!

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I got to the end of my handle and had to decide how to finish it off.

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I whipped the strands of the stems tightly, then trimmed them off hard.

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I braided and tightened and snugged the handle wrapping thongs as far down the handle as I could.

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At the end I ... I don't know the word here. I manipulated the thongs so they all folded over the end of the handle like three interwoven flaps.

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I snugged them down evenly and tightly...

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then cut them off flush.

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Ta-da!

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At last, I have a flogger. It looks like a flogger here, but as roses, it looks pretty pathetic.

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Here they look like a bunch of roses in a vase.

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Now to the hardware for the closure of the wrap. I took a two piece latch,

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I removed the locking arm and used a heart shaped padlock through the staple over the hasp.

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I then screwed the hasp and staple to the wrapper in a place where they'd be covered by the outermost part of the wrapper. I cut a little slit for the hasp and a hole for the staple so the lock could be attached on the outside when all wrapped up. The other silver dots are snaps I put on to keep the very tail of the wrap closed. These are on the back, you've never seen them.

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Beauty shot number one of three that I'll submit to SEAF.

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Glamour shot two of three for SEAF.

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Glamour shot three of three for SEAF.

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This whole project was very satisfying. I learned a lot about braiding and there's a lot to be done with braiding. I have other projects in mind (cue evil laugh). But mostly it was the pleasure of seeing the gradual and inexorable transformation of my idea into a real object. I'm happy how it turned out, and so is my darling girlfriend.

Thanks to all of you for letting me share my pleasure in my work.

I appreciate the final piece a lot more now that I've seen the process.

Very nice!

I've been doing a lot of four strand round braiding for the gimp thingies that I've been making as geocaching swag. I've been wanting to try leather, but haven't been to the craft store to get any.

Wow ... Amazed at your patience and the attention to detail.
Outstanding.

I submitted my art, they replied today.

Bummer. Next year, Fremont!

For originality of concept and skill of execution, I think your work is excellent. I have trouble understanding why they didn't choose to show it.

Meh, give em a good flogging!

They clearly do not properly appreciate fine art!

You created a beautiful and unique piece of art, V.
Never mind if it wasn't part of their vision for this year, you know you did good.

Thanks friends for your very kind words.

Good news: I wasn't forced to sell it and deprive the woman I love of her gift. That was the risk I was most worried about. She has it now, though I don't know anything about how she's displaying it yet. I'll find out soon. :)