Friday 29 October 2010

Kinsai Revisitied

The second workshop that I attended in September was a second kinsai class with Midori-san. This time we were doing the gold leaf work on Double Cherry Blossom Fan, a complimentary design to the Drooping Cherry Tree Fan that I did earlier in the year. The first was a two day workshop, this design was a one day workshop as there is less gold leaf work on it. First, Midori-san screen printed the design for the embroidery onto our fabric, which had been applied to foam board with 505 glue. As before, we began by cutting out the sticky back plastic masks. The masks for this design are less complicated so it took less time to prepare them. We soon had the first masks in place and began to apply blue paste paint with a stippling brush. I had remembered that the pigment in this paste is very strong and took my time building up the colour little by little. I liked the result much more than my first attempt with this technique. We then removed the first masks and put the second ones in place. We used a pallet to apply silver and gold paint to the gaps in the mask. Again, I had learnt from my previous experience and made sure that the edges of the mask were well pressed down so the paste would not bleed under it. That mask was removed and the final one put in place for the last step, applying the flakes of gold and silver leaf. Although I remembered the importance of working quickly for this technique, and I though I did work quickly, I had the same problems with the glue drying very rapidly and my sprinkles did not all stick to the silk. All in all, I think I did rather better than with the first class. I don't know if that was because this was a simpler design or because I had learnt from my first class. In some ways I would have liked to do this design first and had a little experience to bring to the more complex design. I still have the embroidery to do. This is Midori-san's finished fan. Of the two fans, I like this one best so hope that I will enjoy the embroidery more when I get to it. Happy Stitching.

3 comments:

Rachel said...

It sounds as though you remembered quite a lot of the first class so you weren't surprised by anything that happened this time - which is what often happens when learning new techniques.

Looking forward to seeing more...

MeganH said...

Wow - the masking effect is so pretty! I especially love the blue

Susan Elliott said...

Absolutely stunningly beautiful. Who is this Midora-san and why did I not know of her? Your paint and gold leaf are really stunning. Those two fans are really amazing. You are something, CA!!