Life. Mimics art / and vice versa.
Creative Process Update – January 29, 2016
Category Archives: Process
Abstraction in Nature – December 07, 2015
Rather large pencil drawings of a spider lily petal are inching toward completion. Captured this evening at the copper gold moment right before the sundown. This is for a series of dyed silk garments named “Spider Lily Red”. It is important that I get it right while on paper, so that when I move on to painting on silk, my brush will be reasonably sure-footed.
Artist at Work – September 28, 2015
Lily. I want to be you.
Nature as an Inspiration – September 09, 2015
In praise of Her Highness – Spider Lily Red update.
How do you gather your red, while waiting for the autumn in the lightless soil?
When the three a.m. air tells me the summer is near, I think of your bulbs, eavesdropping on the night.
Project Name: Spider Lily Red
Current Status: On
References: Progress of this project / Previous dyed items
Magenta Sunsets – an update on Spider Lily Red
This early summer, we are having sunsets in vivid magenta, frequently enough to surprise, amuse, worry – an earthquake premonition? – many of us over here.
Drawings in the photos – extended, drawn, traced – are for “Spider Lily Red”, the newest series of dyed garments.
Before the Summer comes…
Spring wrap up.
me: You kidding.
flower: No, really. This is the look I’m after.
From Top:
Clunky patchy job extending the drawing, of a spider lily petal. For my “Spider Lily Red” series.
Clematis, one of the many crazy-blooming in the yard right about now.
Drying petals and stamens of Clematis, in macro.
“Dada Tote” that I’ve been working on.
Many ways to blossom. I would have never known how this tiny thing looks had I not macro-ed it this afternoon.
Budding in Red, Brighter.
Just as salmons are swimming up the stream, my 5 swatches they had returned from the specialists, with dye particles steam set, settled between fabric grains. (What swatches? Refer to the previous post please.)
The photo above is one of the swatches – number 2, the first try at the “line drawing” – getting a quick bath in dye-fixing liquid.
In the following video I included a short footage of me washing off the excess dye in special solution, tap water and magic portion that prevents dye from staining the rest of the fabric.
Also in the video is the sound of salmons inching up the shallows of the river – the same river as I frequented to rendezvous with spider lilies just a month ago – if you listen carefully you’d hear them making splashes.
Like the lilies, they are here earlier this year. Well what’s up Nature may I ask, but then again, what do I know to question their timings.
As for the dyed lilies on the swatches, the color – red – came out brighter post-setting, sorta suitable for the budding of the project.
ALERT:
This video contains flickering lights.
(Sunlight reflections on stream surface.)
The project in question is called “Spider Lily Red”, this link will take you to the posts I’ve written since it’s early stages. Thank you for your visit, check back again soon.
A Gift from the Lilies
October 08, 2014. On the day of the special full moon, I finished making five dye sample swatches. Each drawn on a different fabric, all silk, holds dye particles in its own way.
The one below is on ivory-colored silk chiffon georgette, so far my most favorite, quite unexpectedly so, as I thought it’d be too fluid even for the faintest touch with a brush-point.
Twenty days in September spent beside red spider lilies had left me with a gift that seems to be growing on its own. Just as the project itself has a life of its own. Last year I drew the lilies off photographs, dragging my feet at times as I study their complex shapes on a series of pencil drawings. Weary, I’d put my pencil down, on, off and so forth. When I return to it though, I found myself, once and again, in ideas and skills, at a place further ahead from where I left off.
Fairies, has got to be. The red lilies and their hired hands. They followed me home and started building an engine, a gift to the repeat visitor and her adoring eyes.
The lilies were here only for a short time; the rural landscape feels even more muted since. But those fairies they never quit, day after day, working on the motor that is fueled by my remembering the special tone of red. The spider lily red.
The blue photo above was taken on the night of total lunar eclipse, shortly after the moon rose above the horizon, just a few hours before the show time. I omitted the moon in the photo but trust me it was there, sprinkling glitters on the darkened surface of the Big Fluidity.
The swatches are about to be sent off to specialists in Tokyo for steam-setting very soon. They are made as the first step for “Spider Lily Red”, the latest addition to my dyed threads series. You can view the progress of the project as well as the Lilies – the muse, sans fairies, in these posts.
Thank you for your visit.
Last Edited: November 30, 2020
Every petal’s a masterpiece.
For last two weeks, my priority #1 has been to spend as much time with spider lilies, bloom for a short while each autumn.
This year they are back earlier, and seemingly more in numbers.
The blossom has been my muse for sometime now, and here’s why, shown in pictures.
The above two drawings are both dye sample swatches, from top the completed #2 and in-progress #3. On different fabrics – both silk, with slight difference in dye absorption, lines bolder on the #3 just because. This style of drawing is a new trick I am trying out since the above #2 but has been on my mind for much longer.
As for the petals, I couldn’t find a thing to add. Examining them closely somehow grew me muted.
I’ve decided to call this project “Spider Lily Red”, the newest addition to my dyed threads series.
最後の屋外プールが閉まった日、彼岸花が咲き始めたのに気がついた。二年前の秋、突然のようにあの赤い色を見ると胸の奥で何かが着火するようになった。なにがどう変化したのか、本当に突然だったのか。わからない、でもきらいな感覚では全然ない。
写真の絵２枚は染め見本、素材は両方ともシルクだがテクスチャーは少し違う、よって染料の染み込み具合の感触も違う。そうすると意識しないでいても描き方も自然と違ってくる。なんでかはわからない、わかろうとする気もあんまりない。
そもそも何故彼岸花がそんなに好きになったかだって不明。でも、わからん、といってそのままにしておけるのが何故かとても嬉しくて、くるくるにまるまった花びらを指に絡めてみたりするのだ。
進行中の彼岸花シリーズ『Spider Lily Red』は当方の染色系統の次作（今までの作品はこちら）。
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