Katazome - Day Two

It was a glorious morning for the first day of fall, with the sun beaming from a clear blue sky. There is nothing as fabulous as a beautiful day in the PNW, and nothing as dreary as a dark wet one. For today, we get the fabulous version.

Today was Day Two of Katazome class at Sitka. This is what the Sitka Center looks like:

That is really only part of the building; it climbs  up the hill like it is, itself, a part of the forest. Our class studio is on the second floor, sheathed in pine planks and flooded with natural light from large windows and skylights.

Today Karen, our teacher, shared some of her fabric collection with us. She had antique Japanese indigo dyed fabrics. She had pieces of her own work, and pieces she had printed using antique Japanese katazome stencils.

We finished making our own stencils, and started putting color on the fabric we stenciled yesterday. That part felt really foreign; I couldn't envision how this process will translate to the finished piece. The pigments have to cure for several weeks on the fabric, so I will have to be patient to see how it all turns out! We'll put another coat of pigment on tomorrow before we are done.

One of the things I have noticed in Japanese prints is how beautifully water is depicted. The flow and movement are so real you can almost see it moving. As I sat in the living room gazing out the window in the growing dusk (NOT hiking in the dark like yesterday, once is enough for that!), I noticed that as it gets dark the surf becomes very contrasty and pronounced, and it made me think of a Japanese print.