After accidentally finding my late mother’s silk Cheongsam (traditional Chinese dress) in my loft, I have been exploring making my own 3D canvas in the shape of the iconic Cheongsam for painting. My reason for wanting to make such a canvas is captured in this blog:

MA Y1 U2: Cheongsam Series #2 – study drawing

Below are two blogs on the first experimental 3D canvas painting that I made as a start to the Cheongsam series of work. I have gained much invaluable learning through making this first dress because I am completely new to dressmaking:

MA Y1 U2: Cheongsam Series #3 – wearable painting

MA Y1 U2: Cheongsam Series #4 – Appropriation. Appropriation.

Then I started to think of subjects for my next paintings. I thought of doing something about my identity which is a foundation topic of my art practice. I explored using food as metaphors for cultural identity and started with a digital sketch of pop art ‘banana’ theme. The blog below explains what ‘banana’ means in this context with more background information:

MA Y1 U2: Cheongsam Series #5 – She’s a banana! – Part A

Then I decided to capture more about my thoughts on the subject with additional research findings. Hence I created a blog as an introduction to the Cheongsam Series – Food as cultural identity metaphors. This blog includes an extract from the film ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ where the meaning of ‘banana’ was explained as ‘yellow on the outside, white on the inside’ – a metaphor for a ‘Westernised’ East Asian person.

MA Y1 U2: Cheongsam Series – Food as metaphors for cultural identity – Introduction

Within the above introduction, I also talked about my personal response to ‘You’re a banana!’… my response would be ‘No, I am an egg.’ The two food metaphors were chosen as subjects of this Cheongsam series.

I wanted to make the ‘banana’ painting first, but I found that I didn’t have enough paint in stock for the chosen green background colour that I wanted to use. So while I ordered more green paint, I proceeded to create the ‘egg’ dress first.

METHOD

I made the canvas Cheongsam dress using the same dressmaking pattern that I had used before. Like the last dress I made, the material used here was also calico.

Learning from the first dress that I made, the pattern was a very loose fitting dress therefore darts are definitely required on the front and back of the dress:

The first dress that I made was hand sewn because my old sewing machine gave up on me. I bought a new sewing machine for this dress and I chose a heavy duty one since I was planning to sew thicker canvas materials going forward.

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Below is the completed dress canvas in calico:

I chose to use fluorescent or neon colours with a pop art theme for this Cheongsam series because I wanted them to be fun. These food metaphors are often used in a light-hearted way from one East Asian person to another, hence I don’t want these paintings to be too serious. I decided to use fluorescent pink for the background for the ‘egg’ dress as a response to the fluorescent green that I had planned for the ‘banana’ dress. Pink was meant to be a fun response and I felt it would help the eggs to stand out in the design. The medium below was used to prime the canvas:

Below are the front and back of the pink dress canvas:

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A variety of egg images were considered for the design:

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The shortlisted eggs were marked onto the pink canvas with white chalk prior to painting:

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Below are images of the finished painting:

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The painting is wearable:

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Finish work: ‘No, I’m an egg.’ Acrylic on handmade Cheongsam dress canvas. L105 x W76 x D30cm.

REFLECTIONS

I am pleased with the outcome of this painting. I feel the colours and composition worked out well with the eggs. I am also pleased that the canvas is wearable. Although I had not intended for it to be a piece of garment, being wearable will give more options of how to present such a piece of work. I enjoyed the making process, too. I will capture my full reflections for both the egg and banana dresses together at the end of the series in this blog:

MA U2: Cheongsam Series – Food as metaphor for cultural identity – Overall reflections for ‘banana’ and ‘egg’

LEARNING

Since dressmaking is so new to me, there were lots of good learning from a technical making perspective:

For this design, making the darts from the start (before painting) worked better so should bear this in mind. Get the dress to fit (if intending to wear) as well as possible before painting is key. Once the paint is applied, the sewing becomes harder and manipulating the canvas would risk creasing the paint.

The most important learning was the fitting of the ‘zip’. Instead of using a conventional zip, I used a strip of Velcro because that was easier. Since these dresses are not really garments for everyday wearing, I believe Velcro is sufficient and a good alternative. However, I learnt from this dress that how the Velcro is placed can make a big difference aesthetically. The two Velcro pieces have to be placed on the interfacing of the opening in a way that minimises its visibility from the front view. I hadn’t appreciated this because I accidentally did it correctly in the previous ‘blue willow’ dress, but I did it incorrectly here.

Incorrect way meaning the Velcro is visible from the front:

Correct way below – the Velcro is not visible from the front. I must remember that the edge of the seam for the zip-opening on the back piece should be left free, i.e. ‘not sewn down’; whereas the corresponding edge for the front panel should be sewn down so that the Velcro seam is rear facing when in place.

NEXT STEPS

Make the banana dress!