Expressions in Silk vs Linen 麻と絹の表現

It's now Spring holidays at Kyoto Seika University but I have been going into school to use the space and facilities to do some different experimental works. One of these has been some scroll format works. Here is the stencil I cut. It's of a male Red-rumped parrot. They are really cute little birds, shy and stick to the ground. They are often hanging around the edges of water, too.

stencil of Red-rumped parrot. You can see lots of 'bridges' holding the parts of the design together which are later erased with the resist paste.

I ended up printing 3 versions of this stencil. The first one on silk came out ok but I was unhappy with the dyeing so I reprinted it again, once on old obi silk and once on some beige natural linen. The difference in the outcomes is pretty significant! take a look for yourself.

Psephotus haematonotus (silk) 2012.  on the silk the colours are bright and crisp.

Psephotus haematonotus (linen) 2012. This time on a crispy natural linen the colours are more subtle.

close up of the Linen

Of course the dyes used on linen and those on silk are different, so that also comes into it but it was really exciting to see such different results from the one design. I like them both, for what they are. I'm interested to hear what my professors might say when I show them these two side by side after the holidays.