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.
ALERT:
This video contains flickering / flashing lights.
(Sunlight beaming through leaves / blurred traffic lights blinking in distance.)
Today’s discovery: fishing boat is an experimental composer! Play the full range if possible.
Tascam-ed this evening as I sent it off to the moon-lit Pacific.
Task at hand: Spider Lily Red – Flare (One). Visual snippets are from late March to mid April, recorded easy breezy as the cherry blossoms came and went.
“Hope you get to see the cherries fall – have you?
There’s this one day all the trees decide to let go of the petals, it’s not the rain, or storm…but when this one day comes, often a very sunny day, they release their petals and fill the gray and busy Tokyo with swirling mass of pink confetti.”
– from an unsent letter, three springs ago.
Photos: Spider Lily Red, in progress, pictured just yesterday.
The text is a repost from April 2014. Although the original post was deleted (it was not “dense” enough to stay – with each post I try to deliver something meaningful, personally and hopefully also somewhat universally.) I liked the text and every year I thought of it as the cherries fell. Because they fall, how they fall each year, as if the petals are held by micro hands that release the grip at the command inaudible to human ears, orchestrated in perfect timing optimal for the falling petals to dance midair.
I am also accumulating videos, of the blossoms, me painting, and other various scenes from spring I wish to put together at one point. For now though, I am focusing my effort on finishing the painting because.
Using dye is a delicate business. One must protect the budding piece from any moisture (e.g. sneezing, drooling..) and flying dye particles that become only visible once heat-set. It is best done in one sitting, in this case in one long sitting.
All photographed in 2015.
The photo 1 and 5, respectively:
A Wing (1996) – wood, silver.
An Ally (2014) – self portrait (as a child), pencil on paper, detail.
(Please allow me to lightheartedly add: ‘one eye’ is a happenstance.)
Back in May 2015, I did a post titled “Zine One”. At that time I was psyched to put together images of what I made up until then like a casual portfolio and bind them into something between a magazine and a photo book, something creative while keeping it easy and informal. I tested a few printing options and got kind of disappointed with all. So I dropped the whole thing and deleted the post :(
Fast forward to December 2016, while I was not looking the idea revived itself. to create a series of small booklets with a personal touch and pack them with the excitement of creativity bit. Photos are the ones loosely in consideration for the issue one, put together as an experiment with a new spin. (What I picked in May’15 turned into a photo series. )
Thank you for your visit. Keep warm if applicable, stay cool, and enjoy the festivities!!
Additional note: Entry edited – shortened – on June 10, 2018, while the idea still alive in back burner. Time flies; savor the fruits. :)
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.
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.
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.
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.)
This website uses cookies to make your visit savory as possible.
Cookie is a mini data file my web server sends you and stored in your browser to help me serve you better.
Strictly Necessary Cookies
Strictly Necessary Cookies are best be enabled at all times so, for instance, my site can remember your preferences for cookie settings.
If you disable this cookie, again for example, your cookie preferences be gone when you leave, meaning upon your return we start over from scratch.
3rd Party Cookies
This website use a translation service GTranslate which pulls Google Translate function, and a shopping cart service Gumroad.
They all use cookies, some, “marketing cookies”.
.
I explained in length what those things are on my Cookie Policy Page, if interested. In short, I try (and struggle) to give my visitors best choices while making this whole thing work as smoothly.
.
To turn them all off, you can either
1. click “REJECT ALL COOKIES” on the pop up banner
2. leave the cookie button on the right disabled, or
3. via myCookie Policy Page —> "How to reject unwanted cookies".
Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!
Cookie Policy
You can read more about all this, also change your cookie settings at any time from my Cookie Policy page.
