blackbirds

black willow branches in January

more black willow branches

dogwood branches

Next, I trace a cartoon from my sketches, combing the imagery from the sketches. (I probably have no business making a stencil with this much open area (that is, area to be cut away), but I’m curious and committed to see how my idea works out – or not, as the case may be!) I make design adjustments both after tracing the stencil and while I am cutting it. This one will need lots of bridges to give it stability because of all the open areas. The moon is missing because it will be pasted from a separate Yupo stencil.

cartoon for stencil

A light coat of spray adhesive adheres the cartoon to my stencil paper, which has been cut to allow an ample margin on all sides. My image is larger than my stencil paper so will be spread across two stencils.

stencil cartoon adhered to stencil paper

Cutting the stencil:

cutting the stencil

Here is my two-part stencil before reinforcing.

two-part stencil

This week I am pasting and dyeing the under-layers, and hope to share a bit of that work later this week.

As I delve into this rich motif, I will share some of my process here. I’ll be working on several closely related pieces simultaneously, one of which will go into this show.

Playing with leaf bundles (as taught by India Flint in her marvy book) last week felt like the perfect way to begin contemplating the theme, allowing space for my imagination to simmer. My intention is to explore the use of these subtle prints as a background to imagery made with layers of rice paste, stencils, and natural pigments (katazome materials and techniques).

some leaves ecoprinted on soy mordanted silk

Beginning, there many images floating in my mind. A memory of a walk around my local pond near the summer solstice of 2010 is mingling with walks this winter where bare branches – subtle in color – and gray skies are dominant.

Grackles and the moon

Branches include the lovely red osier dogwood, a native shrub. Find the hiding bunny.

As you know if you’ve visited this blog before, katazome is a centuries old Japanese tradition. Sometimes it’s perplexing to explain  to people why I am so passionate about these luscious materials and labor-intensive, exacting processes. This article, does a great job beginning to explain it, within the context of an exhibit review. Have a look:  Beauty in all things

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I am playing with shapes in anticipation of my February class at the Textile Center.

Notan: A Study in Design
Mondays, February 6, 13 and 20, 6:00 – 9:00 pm
Notan is a Japanese concept meaning dark-light, or the interplay of positive and negative space in design. In this workshop, we will explore the dynamics of this principle using black, white and gray paper to work through a series of exercises exploring and applying these ideas. We will discuss the applications of notan in textile design and share and discuss our studies and experiments in class.

For registration information, click here.

Field and sky 2 | Natural pigments on reclaimed linen damask © Kit Eastman

When I first used these Yupo stencils, I found pasting somewhat awkward because they are not reinforced.  My paste spreader (hera) was catching on points and edges of shapes in the stencil. I learned to reinforce my shibugami stencils with silk netting, called sha. John Marshall developed an innovative method which doesn’t require toxic lacquer. The netting, which is attached to the front (top) of the stencil, both stabilizes it and protects it from damage while pasting. Here is a close up of one of my reinforced stencils. You can see how fine the sha is.

tulip stencil detail

The solution I came up with seems to work well so far with these Yupo stencils. I found some mosquito screen at my local hardware store. It’s made from lightweight plastic or nylon. A roll of it costs less than $10 and is enough to make a bunch of screens. I cut it to approximately the same size as my stencil (or a little smaller), and created a flexible margin around it using duct tape. The stencil goes down on the cloth first, then the screen goes over the top. Paste as usual, then mist lightly, and remove both the stencil and the screen from the surface simultaneously.

screen and stencil after removing from first pasting

Below is a close up of the screen corner. I made the margin a bit too narrow, but since my Yupo stencil already had a rather wide margin it didn’t really matter. You need a margin for the extra paste to flow as you spread it across the stencil.

corner of screen with 1/2 width duct tape border

The border of the screen below is wider, and I think this works better. I used 2 pieces of duct tape, one on back, one on front, overlapping the screen by about 1/2″.

another screen with a wider border

You will have to make sure your paste is of the proper consistency, i.e. not too thick. Thick paste will likely leave little squares on your cloth in the pattern of the screen. Here’s a close up of my wet paste after screening. You’ll see a few areas where I need to smooth it out a bit but generally it covers well. The cloth is linen: loosely woven, soft, with a basket weave pattern woven in, which gives it dimension and texture. (I am making curtains for the household.)

paste up close

I think this is an adequate and flexible solution. Everything is waterproof and does not buckle. You can soak the paste off and forget about it (as is my normal routine) when finished pasting. If you want to paste the stencil both from the back and the front, i.e., flipping the design, you may do so, though you’ll have to wash the paste from the stencil before flipping it. I think using this technique with a registering repeat design will be more challenging; something to look into later.

shore view

Black Willow, native to this region

Moss on the north side of the Black Ash tree

I see these colors reflected in the silk and wool from my latest (and likely my last until next year) leaf bundle experiment. I had collected so many leaves I couldn’t see my work table. So I bundled them in silk and wool strips. The wool was treated first with alum. The silk had been soy sized some months ago. Simmering them in onion skin extract gave lovely rust colored edges.

River Birch (Betula nigra) and Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum) on wool

White Oak (Quercus alba) and Swamp White Oak (Quercus bicolor) on wool

Black Willow (Salix nigra) and Black Chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) on silk

Smooth Wild Rose (Rosa blanda) on silk

The thrilling ecoprint process (as developed then shared whirled-wide by India Flint) transforms the fleeting beauty of these leaves to something we can savor over time.  I’ll add the strips to my personal quilt weaving, started long ago (a technique learned from Jude Hill of Spiritcloth here).