Category Archives: Process

Sea/She

A sea shell detail over a ocean wave.
A mussel shell detail over sea surface.
Artwork in progress with ocean surface.
Sea shells layered with sea shore.
A mussel shell detail with sea and a gull.

Photo #3 from top:
Workin’ hard, buried in seashells – the piece in progress is named “Spider lily Red – Flare 2”. (Flare 1 is completed / what I am painting is this drawing.)

Sea shells with sea shore.

Creative Process, May 2019.

Spanish Bluebell stamens and a pistil detail.
Bluebell blossoms and an art work in progress.

#Beautywillsavetheworld

Sumire Violet blossom detail.
Hyacinth dried petals detail.
Spanish Bluebell, stamens, a pistil, an ovary detail.

May 05, 2019, the day the last petals fell from the cherry tree outside my window, I opened a new bottle of red acid dye and dissolved a small portion in a tiny plastic container. It’s the beginning of a long painting process, starting with tracing of the previously-done drawing on the wrong side of silk stretch satin.

In the early part of the process, as seen in the photo below of a newly traced pattern, the piece would look quite unpromising. Being the only person who sees the potential in the work-in-progress, it is up to what faith I got left in me to bring the vision of what it can be onto the surface which, at least for an initial while, appears to be nothing but a far cry.

I’ve been driven to bring into existence the two-piece series I named “Spider Lily Red – Flare”. Will I still be going through this even if no one else in this world would dig it? (ouch!!) The answer is ever-emphatic yes.
I’d do it for the Beauty, the kind that is all-enveloping, synonymous with words like ‘Timeless’ and ‘Truth’, because It touched me again and again and again, in a way I do not know how else to say “Thank You” to.

Bluebell blossoms and an art work in progress.
Spanish Bluebells flower detail.

From Top:
Quote / hashtag by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Haven’t read the book though – I found it on instagram.
Photo 1,5,7 – Spanish Bluebell, captured macro in various stages of progression.
3 – Violet, bold and vibrant.
4 – Hyacinth, dried petals and the part that held the seed.
2 and 6 – ‘Spider Lily Red – Flare”, in the aforementioned initial stages, with inspirative Spanish Bluebells.

Creative Process, September 2005.

A dog fight analogy.

Which beast wins?
The one you feed will.

Creative Process Triptych.

Making the invisible, visible. Kawasaki, Japan.
Both the drawing and the prototype are Aqua Dragon Dress 2 in its early formation.

Creative Process, March 2019.


A Japanese Apricot bud detail.
Artist's studio with works in progress.
A Japanese Apricot budding detail.
Artist at work.
Bunchflower Daffodil flower detail.
Artworks in progress with Narcissus blossoms.
Bunchflower Daffodil dried flower detail.
Art work in progress.
A Japanese Apricot blossom detail.
Art works in studio.
A Japanese Apricot post blossom detail.

From top:
Photo 1,3,9,11 – Japanese Apricot, also known as Ume, in various stages of development.
5,6,7 – Bunchflower Daffodil, Narcissus Tazetta in Latin. Dries pretty (6 and 7).
Both flowers are in full bloom as of now, impeccably designed by The Artist I follow very closely.
2,4,6,8,10 – Are my stuff I’m working on called “Spider Lily Red – Flare 2”. Well where’s the red? That’s coming up next.
References: Spider Lily Red – Flare 1 (completed), the drawing traced in the photos above (also completed) and the progress of the project (has been documented since 2012).

Hope this post finds you well – thank you for stopping by.

Work in Progress.

Japanese Apricot blossoms detail.
Artist in studio.

Time flies, but you are the pilot.
– KLM Airlines paper napkin.

Japanese Apricot calyx detail.

The pilot, during a break after a long flight through fine and foul, low fuels, engine troubles, and turbulences with oxygen masks dangling – there also had been a few instances of emergency landings (details withheld) – is photographed on her recent 55th birthday, striking a “mountain peak pose” standing amidst papers for a project named “Spider Lily Red“, with a bouquet of Bunchflower Daffodils, sandwiched by pictures of Japanese Apricot, the first two to start off the seasons of scented blossoms.
She is captured donning a dyed jacket, one of her earlier creations, and a smile that turned up impromptu, as she pondered upon the monumental tasks, the project and the flight, both work in progress, much like the pilot.

Thank you for your visit, and here’s to your monumental flight!!

Creative Process, September 2018.

Art studio with spider lilies.
Spider lily blossoms in vase.

Spider lily blossoms and a drawing.
A spider lily blossoms and artwork.

Spider lily blossoms by a Jizou statue.
Swallowtail butterfly on spider lily blossoms.

The project: Spider Lily Red.
In progress is the second of the two piece series called “Flare”.
Images are from this past September, captured moments during the precious three weeks I get to spend every autumn with my favorite lilies, my muse, taking in as much, their familier red to last me for a year.
The photos are in sleepy smoky monochrome, because I am saving up the stored red so as to pour it all into the second piece I will be painting in the coming months.

Thank you for your visit, and Happy Holidays!!

Mimic.

A weeping peach bud detail.
A hand painted flower dress detail.
A camelia blossom detail.

A hand painted flower dress detail.
A dried ginkgo leaf detail.
A praying mantis waist detail.

A cherry blossom detail.
A hand painted flower dress detail.
A praying mantis detail.

A hand painted flower dress detail.
A sumire violet blossom detail.
A hand painted flower dress.

All recent images, photographed as winter turned spring, from top:

Photo 1 – Weeping Peach (Shidare Momo), a bud, blooming in still chilly early April.(… hence the fur cap?)
3 – Camellia, they drop the whole flower, as if letting petals go one by one like most everyone else is too cumbersome.
5 – Gingko leaf, curly dried. I think of details like this one, astronomical many of them, that I don’t get to have a look at, as every leaf dries with different curls, lit by ever-changing light.
6 and 9 – Praying Mantis, also dried, caught my eye while parking my car lightly resting on asphalt as a fine sculpture, because, it simply is.
7 – Cherry Blossom (Somei Yoshino), a sepal. At a park I discovered this year with three impressive cherry trees that attracts so many birds (they all chirp non stop) during 2 weeks of blooming, yet very small number of humans. Many days I solo-nicked*, spent time brings me smile recalling.
11 – Violet, also abundant at the same park as picture 7.

2, 4, 8, 10, 12 – Close details of Spider Lily Red – Flare 1. Drawn with nearly a hair of a brush, filling in bumpy edges to form smooth flowing lines. That’s how I attempt to bring the painting closer to the True Artistry evident in above images, knowing full well I will never surpass, which, defeat as such I mean, somehow makes my heart warm in all the right ways.

*Solo-nic is a made-up word I just came up with, so as to mess with other people’s language. But really, it’s the act of spontaneous lone picnicking I recommend to anyone with ears open, just so long as the land you’re about to occupy is safe and legally permissive.

Thank you for your visit!

Creative Process, November 01, 2017.

A spider lily petal close up.

My kind of prayers.

Artist's hand and an art work.

The piece in progress: Spider Lily Red. A petal of the said lily (top), the muse, certainly posing like one, from late September this year, and my interpretation of it painted on silk, the reverse side of a dress in formation, pictured on the last day of October.
Stitches are done by hand, my homage to the God of Creativity whose benevolence and artistry I could never outdo.

Creative Process, Late July, 2017.

A flower petal dye drawing.
A red spider lily petal detail.

Above: post steam set (the high-heat, steam-not-water procedure is outsourced to craftsmen in Tokyo who mostly work with kimono clients), red dye now bright and alive. Approx.120 things I secretly feared would go wrong, one of which being overdoing the dye, meaning way too many dye particles sitting upon fabric grain, from which a major trouble certainly results, a mistake I once made in 2003, did not happen. Dyed surface now stable, time for me to relax.

Below: a macro shot of a spider lily petal, the muse for the above piece I’ve been working on, photographed as I discovered its magic back in Fall 2014.