ever soooo grudgingly
on
messing with pattern making for
my current "wing dress" project,
i decided to share with you
the history of my previous passion,
the dragon dress
idea conceived sometime in '98
and completed for now in fall '06
first piece
made sometime between
1998-2000
began to practice on drawing scales
using snake photos and a vacuum cleaner hose
i did draw on wool knit material
scales only, using fabric marker (pigment ink)
nice for the first try but
one major issue:
the ink doesn't stay
so after each wash, i must
touch-up
(((lol)))
design was more abstruct than the later ones
the second try
same marker on different (more absorbent) material
polyurethane and something else mixture
as much details as the fabric markers would allow
however, to my moderate dismay, there's
still some noticeable fading post wash
this is when i decided to
take advantage of living in japan
and learn the art of fabric dyeing
using acid dye that requires steam setting
the craft of fabric dyeing turned out to be
much finer deal than i expected
the first piece, re-production of the above piece
was worked on from sometime in 2001 til
november 2003
during this period, i was in drought as well
ideas dead, but wished to move forward anyways
hence the endless muddling
below:
this is how the piece #3 is stored now
in a box, double-bagged
that's not casper, by the way
nor klan of you-kno-what
the reason for such a high-strung wrapping is this:
too much excess dye just sitting on surface
ready to fly away and land on stuff
below: way too many whiskers
that's the result of totally going brain-bound
gone way off stream
i'm not saying it's bad
it's life i get droughty at times
i am just saying, it didn't work very well, pushing
see how evenly painted in, dark?
i had just one piece steam-set from these ones
it turned out totally dark, details all gone
and i could not wash off the excess
that means even after fixing the dye,
it would keep on bleeding
below, you see partial flaking of dye
(where it looks kind of whiter and powdery)
that's the sign of definite excess
i was advised by a very kind and knowledgeable man
from dye material store in tokyo (thank yu!) that,
i probably need to paint faster,
apply less and move swiftly
that meant, to me,
to grasp overall shapes and movements of the subject
on spot, or more like, to be
out of drought and in such movement
of course that sort of thing would take time
during this period i've even taken up surfing
as an attempt to learn to
"move with it"
fast forward to spetember 2005
below, a test drawing, using the fabric marker
and a piece using acid dye
on 100% cotton knit
completed in october 2005
got the movement alright but
still applying too much dye
wanting all to "stick"
result?
still bleeding after "fixing"
in 2006, i did 2 pieces for a first group show in tokyo
finally succeeded in making them stay
both on silk/ polyurethane mixture
(very low in poly, otherwise dye won't..dye)
technical success achieved
but yet another piece to complete in my mind
this one was done in summer of 2006
on cotton (knit) 100%
compare to the oct. '05 piece
same material
the difference is that i finally did as i was taught
in terms of dye application
(there's a limit to the amount of dye fabric grain can hold)
a bit embarrassing to admit....
but the result made me feel good
and done, as well
now i must go back to the
pattern making....
thanks for your visit
