Tag: eva foam

For making the cherry blossom samples, I have used in total 7 techniques to replicate the cherry blossom flowers

1. Resin casting
2. Thermochromic painting
3. Smocking
4. Paper crepe folding
5. Hot glue molding
6. EVA foam shaping
7. Plastic fusing

I. Resin casting

More details of resin casting process for the flower petals can be found here:

Resin – Experimentation and Final Project W.I.P

Fig.1, 2, 3, 4: Process of resin casting to make the cherry blossom petals – weighting, stirring and adding pigment, dropping and curing.

Fig.5, 6, 7: Cherry blossom resin petals and final result

II. Thermochromic painting:

I realised that red hue thermochromic paint is a really pretty colour which suits cherry blossom really well, thus I want to utilise its ‘invisible and disappearing’ properties to recreate the characteristic of cherry blossom flower – beautiful but fragile and ephemeral.

Fig. 8, 9, 10: Painting of cherry blossom flower using thermochromic paint: 1st layer – 2nd layer – crimson paint dot and flower disappearing because of heat to represent the blooming and withering flower.

 

III. Smocking

I used  a variety of pink and red colour felt for this technique, I cut out small little circle with diameter around 5cm, then I did a simple stitch around the circle edge, gathered them together at the center. I use the left over thread to create creases and it formed the 5 petals.

Fig. 11, 12, 13: Smocking process: Circle cutting, gathering and creasing, final sample

IV. Paper crepe folding

I also realised that the one material that closely resembles cherry blossom flower and petals is paper crepe  which is commonly used to make pompom flower. I simply squished and twisted the paper to create further imprints and then cut out petals

Fig. 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 ,19: Paper crepe petal process: stretching the paper, twisting to shape, release, folding and cutting, assembling petal and final sample

V. Hot glue molding

I happened to have this flower petal making mold because I was doing some baroque/roccocco decoration in the past. They are silicone mold for cake decoration, mainly used for fondue and hot chocolate shaping. My theory was: if it works for hot chololate, then hot glue should not be a problem. It was fairly simple to use: Squeeze the glue into the mold, apply firm pressure evenly and the form is done after the glue cools down (1 minute). Then with a bit of trimming and painting, the flower was done.

 

Fig. 20, 21, 22, 23, 24: Hot glue mold process: squeezing glue into the mold, applying even pressure, let the glue cool down, trimming, final painting and assemly

VI. EVA foam shaping

I have always been working with EVA foam because of its great characteristic: durability, versatility, heat manipulation reaction and surface smoothness when heat is applied. I used pink EVA foam and cut out petal shape. Usually I’d use heat gun to apply heat, but the petal was too small so I did not want to risk burning my finger while heating (also because I was lazy to set it up), thus I used my iron and high heat. I sandwiched the petal piece between wax paper, ran the iron on top and slowly pulling it away to start forming the shape. I used my thumb and index finger to create the bump and pinching.

 

Fig. 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30: EVA foam shaping process: cutting, trimming, ironing, shaping and assembly

VII. Plastic fusing

I used pink plastic bag and cut it into some parts for trial and errors. I layered them with the plain pink side facing outside. I sandwiched it between wax paper and applied the iron. The plastic fuses almost immediately so my first batch with 2 layers were more or less burnt with holes. The 2nd batch was 4 layers, worked well with no burning, but it was too thick and stiff, and it was too smooth. The last batch using 2 layers worked best because I was careful with timing, and then I just need to cut the shape of petals out.

Fig. 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36: Plastic fusing process – Ironing and cutting

As the final application of the samples, I photoshopped the sample into scarf templates that I found online to represent the rendering of the scarf if the samples were used (All with the exception of resin petals because I used that for the final scarf)

Fig. 37: Sample rendering onto scarf