Tag Archives: spider lily red

Process is the Destination!!

Parable:

I am a lap swimmer, have been since early 1980’s. Been back and forth in aqua blue rectangles worldwide, total sum of distance I covered would, at this point, get me from Central Pacific JPN to the island of Guam I bet.

At one point in my 20’s I realized one thing: when I focus on getting “there” sooner, I’d have a terrible time, increasingly frustrated because, in rectangles “there” does not exist. If I focus on each stroke however, by the time I hit a kilometer I’d be high as a kite. I don’t cliche you on my website; this just simply my experience. Fitness a fringe benefit, hooked on this euphoria ever since.

Pictorial:

Macro closeup of spider lily petals.
A pencil drawing of spider lily petals.
A drawing of a spider lily petal in progress.
Pencil drawings of a spider lily petal in progress.
Artworks in studio.
An abstract spider lily petal drawing.
A hand painted flower dress in process.

Project:

Spider Lily Red (2012 – )

Photos, from top (date photographed):

Petal (September 22, 2013)

A casual, care-free snapshot of spider lily petals, from one of the early macro sessions that introduced me to their delicate / dynamic world.
The one in the middle became THE petal.

Study (November 11, 2013)

Pencil on paper. Started off equally care-free, quickly discovered the shape to be overwhelmingly complex.
Nearly tossed the whole thing in a bin, a trash bin that is.
Why / how I didn’t remains a mystery.

Develop (June 01, 2015)

Pencil on another paper, after few more drawing experiments and several dye tests. Incrementally molding it into my style of line drawing, initially inspired by engravings from 18th Century.

Expand (January 10, 2016)

Still pencil on paper. My interpretations of red spider lilies are translated into each flowing lines.
At least that’s what I think I’m doing, oki?
The kind of endeavor tends to take plenty o time.

Augment (December 01, 2016)

Acid dye on silk. Took about nine full months to paint the pencil drawing (the one below) – of the curly half of the petal I’d call it, on fabric.
Blow up copy on the wall is a drawing of the wavy half of the petal, by the way is painted on the project’s second piece at the time of this writing, in late November 2019.

Refine (October 04, 2016)

Pencil on paper, the first of the two part drawings, congrats to me, completed.
Photographed outside hence leaves casting shadows visible on white space.

Form (May 24, 2017)

Acid dye on silk, photographed while still in painting process but by then I was starting to see the light, the tunnel exit light.
Pinned together to match the lines at seams.

Epilogue:

There is a bird of prey named “Kite”, they glide up high in circles, scanning the ground for a strolling moron with a fish sandwich (true story). In speed of light the hungry moron would lose her sandwich, snatching so slick it’d leave her with heightened sense of awe memorable for decades to come.

Why steal when all you do is glide in circles?

Their whistles gentle like a songbird, its resonance the awe heightened up high, falling mist on the moron in euphoric micro particles.

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, 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!

Spider Lily Red – Flare 1

Dress with a dyed lily petal on the beach.

Spider Lily Red – Flare 1 (2017) – Acid dye on silk.

A hand painted dress on the beach.
A hand painted dress on the beach.

Flare, as in, enliven.

A hand painted dress on the beach.

You would not find Spider Lilies at florists. They flower in fields in early fall as every other flowering plant withers, giving their distinctive red the perfect stage with no competing colors.

Since fall 2012 I have observed the lilies closely, especially through capturing their petals in macro photographs, as the ideas for this series crystallized.
The petals, about an inch long at most, while remaining nearly motionless – there are some, as they progressively curl – they manage to emanate the inspirative fluidity just as dynamic as that of the Ocean.

This is the first of the two-piece series with one half of a petal painted, on a slip, a type of garment designed to be worn closest to the skin not always intended to be seen by others, to enfold but also to express inwardly, to speak into oneself, in this case the language of the red lilies of the field, and of the universal, inspirative Fluidity.

Making of the series has been documented on this website.

A hand painted dress on the beach.

A flower petal dye drawing detail.
A flower petal dye drawing detail.
A flower petal dye drawing detail.

A flower petal dye drawing.

A dress with a lily petal drawing on night beach.

Above: Nightfall (2017, in association with the Ocean)

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.