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| Original (as you can see from the ornate ivory sticks) |
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| My copy (and yes, I wish it had been possible to make a wider leaf). |
The original silk leaf is not just embellished with sequins but gold thread embroidery too. Something that would take a long time to reproduce, not to mention that it would make the fan awfully expensive.
So I made a single paper leaf as usual, with glued on sequins (to avoid ugly threads that would need to be covered up on the reverse). The plain, unpainted bamboo sticks from Nehelenia Patterns were sawn off at the bottom, taken apart and painted with red lacquer and chinoiserie patterns in gold. And as usual, the rivet was replaced with a tongue piercing barbell (with a matching red paste stone!)
Of course, I couldn't resist painting the reverse too, to make it look more like the original fan and besides, there is no such thing as too many roses... ;-)
Despite everything, the fan took at least eight to ten working days to finish and ended up ridiculously expensive. About as expensive as the real thing, or a new gown... A limited number of less pricey, customisable printed copies of this fan will soon be available in my Etsy shop, however!
Marvelous work, turned out so well.
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