Hello All!
As promised, here is a short tutorial on the quilled hollow vase. There are no detailed steps in this tutorial, but I will try to provide general guidelines for those who wish to create a similar piece, but are not sure how to proceed.
1. Find a base shape to work on. I think it is impossible to achieve an acceptable finished shape if you try to make the a hollow quilled vase without a reference shape. I used a glass vase I had at home.
The base needs to be of a material that paper wont permanently stick to, but can hold a few glued coils so as to provide a starting point for the quilled shapes. I think glass is perfect, since paper can be glued on top of it, but can also be pried out clean with a metal pin.
2. Since you will have to take the glass vase out from the final quilled vase, you cannot go on sticking coils over the entire vase. I divided the glass vase into a top half and a bottom half, mark the dividing line lightly with a pen. It is best to start bottom up. Keep in mind that you will be sticking your quilled shaped to each other, and not on to the base. The base is only a reference. You will need to stick the initial couple of coils to the glass vase, so that they stay in place while you stick the rest of the coils to each other.
Keep making shapes and sticking them to each other till you reach the demarcation line of the bottom half. Take the base shape off, and see how a wonderful quilled hollow shape in the form of the bottom half is already created.
3. The curves in the base shape are especially difficult to maintain. Since paper is stiff, the quilled shape keeps curving out, instead of curving in around the center portion of the vase. To overcome this problem, I measured a strip of the length of the girth at the center of the vase (the demarcation line) and stuck coils on this strip. The strip was then glued on top of the hollow shape. This enabled the shapes to start curving inwards.
Picture below shows the strip, the coils stuck on the strip and the way it is glued. Keep this quilled bottom half aside.
4. For quilling the top half portion of the vase, I divided the top portion into two vertical halves and quilled them separately on top of the vase. Once they were done, I glued them together, and then glued the entire structure on top of the quilled bottom half.
These steps are not exhaustive of the effort that went into creating the vase, but are some things that I discovered while working on this project. I did not refer to any tutorial, so this was trial and error for me. I sincerely hope these guidelines help someone who is starting out in the dark like I did!
While everyone is welcome to try out making hollow quilled shapes using these guidelines, please refrain from using the same patterns and colors that I have used in this model. After all, the real fun in creating is putting your own element in your art! :)
Have fun!
Manasee
