Tipis, Tepees, Teepees by Linda Holley

Author:Linda Holley [Holley, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gibbs Smith
Published: 2007-04-20T23:00:00+00:00

Beaded flower cover. Tipi by Darry Wood; owned and beaded by Bob Acorn.

NMLRA Western National Rendezvous.

Painted tipi by the Brewers of Indian Images.

The Brewer family restores and makes reproduction Native American materials for museums and private individuals. Through their years of work, they have come up with some very innovative and creative ways to make materials look old. For a more aged look on a tipi, they developed this idea:

Bill sprayed [the tipi] with a very weak, muddy-colored acrylic solution, akin to tea water or coffee water, using one of those tank-style spray painters. He did it outdoors, and threw some dirt on it while still damp, and then brushed off the excess when dry. We had some black soot that had been shoveled out of an old blacksmith shop, and he used that to darken the top and flaps of the tipi to look like it had been discolored by smoke.

You can paint your canvas tipi cover with large hide-shaped areas, rather than adding additional material cut in hide shapes. This was how it was done in the movie Dances with Wolves, and it looked remarkably good from a distance. It may take some artistic talent, but I am sure with practice (try a miniature tipi cover or even a plain piece of canvas to start with) you could come up with a pretty good facsimile. Just look at old photos (preferably color ones, if you can find some) and try to replicate the “design” of the hides sewn together. There should be shading and some color differential in the different areas representing separate skins, but that is what trompe l’oeil is all about. This ‘fool the eye’ painting is really popular in the United States right now; all sorts of programs on the Home and Garden channel have ways to paint your house up in this way.

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