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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☺
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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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☻
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patrice, veronica, joanne, stefanie, barbara, tanïa, susanne, ariane, sabine, kristen, roberto, eric, leena, tammie, sus, tomoko, mano, yoko, 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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♥
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