I'M DISTRESSED

We were then taught how to distress the fabric in ways that reflected the effects in the quotation. These effects were:

• Puff Binder
• Manutex
• Opaque Binder
• Blood Spatter
• Devore

I went through all of the important phrases from the quote and looked at the possibilities of how I could create the effects.

‘all in coarse grey’

‘a great iron on his leg’

‘broken shoes’

‘an old rag tied round his head’

‘an old rag tied round his head’

‘soaked in water’

‘and smothered in mud’

‘lamed by stones’

‘cut by flints’

‘stung by nettles’

‘torn by briars’

‘a great iron on his leg’ I assumed that this meant shackles, which would mean he was a prisoner, and seeing as he wasn’t in prison he must have escaped so this lead me to think that he would be wearing something he had found to disguise himself. This also meant that he could have had a struggle out of prison, climbing rocks, cutting himself on stones, climbing fences, barb wire, running through puddles etc., these are all effects I could work on.

‘Broken shoes’ was going to have to buy some shoes and brake them to make them look old and worn, I think they would be quite muddy and wet as he had probably been running away from prison through wet forested areas.

‘an old rag tied around his head’ I would imagine he had cut his head so it would be an old piece of cloth that he had torn from something or found somewhere that he was using as a bandage. To give the effect of an old rag, I would probably use puff binder as it gives the cracked and aged look. I could also use a sponge and some opaque binder in a black or grey to make the rag look dirty and old. I would also use some blood that I would make to splash and paint on where the blood would have soaked through the fabric from the cut on his head.

‘Soaked in water’ I think he would have been soaked in water as I imagine it was raining heavily, he was running away so he had probably fallen over into puddles, muddy and wet grassland that would have soaked his clothes. I would create the effect of water by using procien dye painted on the fabric especially on the shirt as the material is thin so would be soaked by the rain much quicker than a thicker fabric, and the bottoms and knees of his trousers because the bottom would soak the water from the ground and from puddles up the fastest. I would use a darker shade of black to the dye colour I used to dye my trousers, and make sure I used a darker shade of black than the colour of the shirt so that it would look like rain as when water soaks an item of clothing it tends to go much darker than its original colour. I would apply it quite thick because the quote says ‘soaked’ therefore it would be as dark as water would make it.

‘Lamed by stones’- lamed means to be ‘Disabled so that movement, especially walking, is difficult or impossible’ (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/lamed) therefore he must have been cut by stones so much so that it hurts him to walk and move. To achieve this effect, I would make sure I make loads of cuts/tears and slices through the fabric and use bloodstains around the tears to show the blood absorbed into the fabric.

‘Cut by flints’ This would also mean that he had been scratched and cut by stones so I would imagine his clothes to be covered in slice marks, there would be a lot of blood stains over his clothes as the cuts would have bled and the blood would have been absorbed by his clothes. The same procedure would be used as what I wrote for ‘lamed by stones’ but these are sharper, smaller slices that would have caused scratches on his skin as well as deeper cuts, so the use of blood would vary for each cut.

‘Stung by nettles’ he must have been in a forested area; I imagine it to be dark so he might not have seen what was in his path. I am not sure whether to make grass stains using either fabric paint or procien dye because it says ‘stung by’ this to me means an effect on the skin rather than the clothing, I may add some grass stain effects onto the garments because he might have fallen over in a grassy area and stung himself but as it doesn’t say that exactly I will probably keep these effects to the minimum.

‘Torn by briars’ this would mean that he would have loads of tears on his clothes from the ‘briars’ which are shrubs or small trees that would have ripped through his clothes as he was running past them. The briars would have probably cut his skin and therefore there would be blood on the clothes around the tears. I could achieve this effect by using a knife to rip a hole and tearing the fabric, a cheese grater rubbed over the same area over and over, or actually trying to rip it on a stone or something sharp. I would paint blood around the tears on the clothes to show that he had been cut when the tears had been made.

I went ahead and distressed the fabric using all of the techniques mentioned above. The puff binder looked really effective because it looked like dried mud.

I used procion dye on top of the shirt and trousers in a darker shade of grey to make them look like they were 'soaked in water'.

I used a cheese grater and bread knife to create the torn and worn effect.

I also made blood using this recipe:

It looks something like this when it is painted onto fabric...