Cut & Paste 型彫り＆糊置き

This week at Kyoto Seika I've been cutting and pasting.
To be more precise, I've been cutting stencils and resist pasting them onto cotton and silk fabrics!

I came up with 3 designs to use for trial artworks.

The first one I am using to dye some noren (narrow width split curtain) for the entrance to my bedroom. The design is based on katazome works by Serizawa Keisuke (one of my katazome heroes) where he takes a singular Kanji (chinese character) and surrounds it with design elements. For example:

Serizawa Keisuke,  「夏の字」 Kanji for Summer. Katazome on tsumugi silk. 1954

Serizawa Keisuke, 「飛の字」Kanji for "Fly". Katazome on linen. circa 1961

I chose to use the Kanji which is used to represent Australia, 豪 which reads as "Go" (you can maybe translate it as 'splendid' or 'grand').

And printed with resist paste onto linen.



Here it is in it's stencil format...





Here are some images of my other two designs in progress...

Crimson Rosella

Getting ready to print the King Parrot design

Close-up of King Parrot's face after I had added some extra details...

The next step will be to apply a soybean mixture that helps stop the dyes bleeding and then I can start dyeing!

New Katazome Hero - Nishijima Takeshi 西嶋武司

As of today,  I add another member to my group of Katazome heroes. Along with Serizawa Keisuke and Inagaki Toshijiro I add Nishijima Takeshi.

I had seen Nishijima's work before but today looking at his works again today I was blown away. He is well known for his colourful depictions of mountains.

What I really love though is his use of COLOUR! Bold blocks of colour as well as very delicate details and washed out colours and shapes.
His artworks also have a real "katazome-feel" to them. Even though they are large panel works and kind of resemble silkscreened fabric, when you look up close he has all kinds of Katazome touches. Hard to explain...

What I find interesting too, is seeing his sketches beside the resulting artworks. How does he make such bold and whimsical katazome pieces out of these wishy-washy sketches? I really struggle to make that jump; from life-like studies and sketches to something really unique and highlighting the unique technique of Katazome.

One more image and I will stop this babble.

Its Kurama! About 15 minutes north of me on the train in north Kyoto.

Parrots. インコ、音呼、鸚哥

The Japanese term for the Parrot family is inko. Nowadays it's written in katakana but it also has a few Kanji (although they are unused) 音呼、鸚哥...
Most bird names are written in katakana or hiragana alphabets now which is kind of a shame because they have these exquisite kanji. Take the following examples...
cockatoo, oumu 鸚鵡
cassowary, hikuidori 火食鳥 (this kanji literally means fire-eating bird!)
eagle, washi 鷲
flamingo, beniduru 紅鶴
Japanese nightingale, uguisu 鶯
kingfisher, kawasemi 翡翠
wren, misosazai 鷦鷯

Maybe it's just me?

I've been back into sketching in preparation for some new projects.

Crimson Rosella. Whose Kanji by the way is impossible to find but its Japanese name is akakusainko



Upside down! Rainbow lorikeet, a.k.a 五色青灰鸚哥 goshiki-seigai-inko!!

The next step is to turn my sketches into something textiles and magnificent! (the hard part!!) Will keep you updated as my design ideas progress...