Royal Baroque Reliquary

Recently Gale and I were emailing back and forth discussing a project I was thinking about for the inspire blog. She showed me a newly finished Reliquary alterable and mentioned that the inspiration for it was the Reliquary Tabernacle with the Virgin and Child that resides at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. I was floored because this is the very reliquary I saw many years ago that inspires my work to this day. It was the perfect piece to complete my vision of a gilded reliquary. It is simple and fast to put together and one can make the interior of the panels extremely intricate for a lot of wow factor.

Collage made in Photoshop using Sheet Royalty 16 — Collage made in Photoshop using the collage sheet Royalty 16

In Photoshop I figured out how the cropped image would look in the central frame.

I printed out the image on fabric and on paper. I knew I wanted to cut out the face and neck in paper to add to the fabric as it looked more vibrant. — I printed out the image on fabric and on paper. I knew I wanted to cut out the face and neck in paper to add to the fabric as it looked more vibrant on the paper. The other parts of the fabric were covered with paint and mixed media.

Working the fabric and preparing to add the paper face.

METHOD

Cover the Reliquary Baroque Tri (I used the Large Reliquary for my project) with Simple Leaf. My preference was to make it slightly less shiny by giving it a thin wash of a gold metallic paint.
Print out the figure Royalty 16 on fabric or paper. I printed her out on fabric, but later glued on a paper face.
If you’re using fabric, sew some gold embroidery thread for hair, some silver for her collar and outline her dress with gold thread. I painted the dress gold with the same metallic gold I used as a wash on the simple leaf. If you’re using paper only, you can paint and draw over the image and add other mixed media items.
I added some rhinestone halos around a gold metallic fabric and some Small Humble Leaves or similar (painted gold) as wings and a flower for her to hold.
To finish embellishing the piece I added some vintage dark ribbon, rows of rhinestones around the central panel and some spray painted gears on the small panels. You might also consider the Fancy Cogs or Fancy Cogs Mini.
The background of the panels can be any of the beautiful background pages Gale has on offer.

MATERIALS USED:

3 thoughts on “Royal Baroque Reliquary”