drawing | japan ~ shibori




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oh, i had plans. 
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this is the story of an old t-shirt called tee and a vintage limb. 
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i was given the limb, the hand. 
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in a thrift shop. 
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i thought i would tear away the faded cotton from its palm. 
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but then i decided to lend the hand a main part in this DC. 
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would i be able to dye the tiny rag, while still on the palm? 
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would i be able to create what i'd had in mind all along? 
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well, no. 
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it did not turn out how i'd planned, including an emergency rescue from the drain. 
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so. onwards and forwards with my intial scheme. 
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when visiting the musée guimet in paris last summer, japanese dyeing techniques caught my attention. 






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i have not been dyeing anything since my teens, so perhaps i got intrigued for sentiment's sake. 
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{i used to tie-dye a lot of clothes!}
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moving on.
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i thought it'd be nice for this weekend to try out the japanese dyeing technique of shibori.
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moreover, and not in possession of natural blue indigo, how would i go about it? 
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would i try to reverse dye? 
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yes. 
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one can reverse dye by using bleach. 
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the tee i used had kept its black colour over five years of washing, so i could have been prewarned of a strong initial dye. 
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the bleach is working though!
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after spilling a quart of the liquid over my paint trousers, i ended straight up in orange!
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no harm done,
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a little wiser. 
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i left the tee in for just under five minutes {which is loooong!},
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gently rocking the lot to and fro. 
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i became a little reckless at some point, and poured more bleach in, straight from the bottle. 
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{that's how my brother always used to bleach his jeans in the early seventies}.
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as the bleach water turned the lightest tone of sepia from the tee, 
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i decided to heave the tee out 
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and soak it in clear water for a while. 
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i waited impatiently. 
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took off the gloves and 
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waited some more. 
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sat down and remembered my morning walk 
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where i happened upon an appropriate cameo image 
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for this weekend's theme.
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does it remind you a bit of an ° japanese image? 
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it did me.
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ha. 
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finally got the tee out of the water to examine its shibori streaks. 
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well. 
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my guess is i'll need a whole lot of practising! 
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patriceveronicajoannestefaniebarbaratanïasusannearianesabinekristenrobertoericleenatammiesus, tomoko, manoyoko, j-girl☺, ... all bring their own take on japan to the screen this weekend. tomoko was brave enough to endure kyoto's heat as she will guide us round the city. her touring trip is up! yoko's whole blog's about japan, go and check out her sweet efforts. jgy has been relishing japan life for quite a while. she decided not to let this moment pass. that would be japan from the front seat, everyone! just a hint.
♥ also, feel free to be our next challenge host! it·is·exciting, as·you·may·well·know. ♥




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thanks for playing though! 
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enjoy saturday and sunday. 
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i have a week of {late} houses to draw. 
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been there, done that :
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update
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tara
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a bit of this. a bit of that

{ as usual : hover over images for more info }

a bit of this. a bit of that. 

i have been fortunate enough as to have found peace in a rhythm of enjoying normal stuff such as going back to work. 

planning an at home day ahead and keeping to a semi tight schedule. 

actually also enjoying off time in between. 

the usual september feeling, but in august already. 











i.
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feel.
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lucky. 

feel like coming to japan? join the drawing challenge
enjoy the rest of the week! 
n♥ 
oh. 
and  U P D A T E ! ☺

DRAWING CHALLENGE NEW THEME | AUG, 30~31



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so here we are. 
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back.
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a weekend later than initially planned.
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rose is moving this weekend, and we could not exclude rose from our next drawing challenge weekend: she's only the best DC notary ever, besides a creative centipede. go check out her FB, she's shooting the world, besides renovating... 
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how doés she do it? 
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now. the weekend of 30/31st of august will be the perfect weekend {i sense that} to restart our drawing challenge routine, will it not? i've been tossing a few themes round in my head, but i'll surrender to the east for now. i think it may have started with sushi, and {elementary} learning how to make those little wonders. discovering a few terrific eastern blogs, enjoying slow moving pictures such as memoirs of a geisha, or poetry. learning to appreciate that slow is good, that less is more.
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let's talk JAPAN, to narrow down an eastern theme sufficienty for anyone to find an item of interest in, whether it be country, food, travel, technique, colour, philosophy. you name it, any style is much appreciated, be it drawing, photo, installation, performance, ..... feel free to interpret! ☻ see you, gladly, over the weekend of august 30/31st, and meet up with : patrice, veronica, joanne, stefanie, barbara, tanïa, susanne, ariane, sabine, kristen, roberto, eric, leena, tammie, sus, tomoko, manoyoko, j-girl☺, ...

month of july, collage be {ii}

last year i did a long july post. i kind of put all things together. 
i liked that myriad feel and decided to do something similar this summer. 
my summer holidays are ending. i feel sad, but happy about the things i accomplished. 
mainly, i have been working, in and around the house. 


the shower is taking shape, slowly, slowly. 
the garden {not shown here} has been seen to, slowly, slowly. 
big and smaller jobs have been done. 
when i wasn't working, i walked about alot and saw ...
curious and ...
... curiouser things. 
it is true, when the weather is a blast, one doesn't need going far to find.... 
... everything. 
... and more ....
... sipping blood red cocktail things, ... 
enduring hot, hot temperatures at times, .... 
taking as many pictures as possible for this project which is now well over half way, ....
not adding all of the images to my folio, because some houses just aren't local, ....


 also, always curling back upon myself, trying out new ventures.
in many respects, the summer holidays have been perfect. 
i may still pop back before the weekend of august 23/24, 
when i'll be hosting the new drawing challenge theme. 
if not, till then! 
enjoy the rest of summer (in western europe), and if not, enjoy anyway! 
i'll be dying next week {going back into work}, ... and live. i suppose. 

update