Weaving Contest Props

For the tapestry’s that both Arachne and Athena create in the contest, I have already highlighted the main aspects that are included on them, and I found them online. I wanted to have them on fabric, but was unsure on how I could create a printing transfer from the image I had, so I took to YouTube to see if there was a DIY version that I could do it myself; I found this YouTube video.

In this short tutorial video, it showed me that I could transfer a photo that I had printed out onto fabric using just pva glue and a paintbrush, simple things that I can buy from the high street shops. Below you can see the original image, and then the tester transfer.

Arachne -

 “Europa, deceived by Jupiter when he presented himself in the shape of a bull” 

Jean François de Troy, The Abduction of Europa, 1716.

Athena - 

“The rock of Mars […] ancient contest that took place there.” 

Jacques-Louis David, The Combat or Mars and Minerva, 1771.

Once I had created practices that went really well, I then proceeded to create larger ones that could be used for the photography shoot. Although both shots below show them in wooden embroidery hoops, I actually only have one hoop, I will be using it on Athena’s piece, to both indicate that Arachne beat her in time and also just to help give visual clues of what has just happened.

Arachne - 

Athena - 

 

Arachne's Dress

As shown in my story breakdown, at the start of the story it talks about Arachne’s father being famous for his purple dyed wool. I mentioned how I could use this idea to give me an avenue to search for to get Arachne’s costume for the photographs. I decided I want a quite elegant and lengthy dress rather than having a more contemporary short dress. After much search using eBay, I found this dress (see below photo). I feel the dress ticks all boxes in terms of design, and it is also in size 8, which is the size of my model.