Katazome Workshop Planning

I will be teaching a 3-day katazome class from June 26-28 at the Grand Marais Art Colony (GMAC) in Grand Marais, Minnesota. The course is suitable for beginners. I’ve taught katazome techniques on fabric at GMAC twice in the past (2012 & 2019). 

In this class, we’ll be making nature-inspired katazome samples on both cloth and paper. I will test some ideas and approaches as I plan the details of the workshop, sharing my process here on the blog.

Mock-up of concertina flower book

First, I plan to make a small concertina book based on the mock-up shown here. I will test several different types of paper to see what works best for this application. If all goes well, I will have a nice example to show students . Then, I hope to be able to create an “open edition” of the book, i.e., I can create copies whenever I want, trying out different color palettes, for example.

What led to this idea?

As you can see from my recent work, I love drawing and sketching flowers. I am not yet done with this theme! Two recent learning experiences have led to the idea of creating a katazome book.

Concertina books by Kit Eastman

In 2021 I took a terrific workshop at Grand Marais Art Colony with Karen Kunc (see Constellation Studios in Lincoln, Nebraska) called From Block to Book. We created reduction woodcut prints and made a concertina book from our prints. We made enough prints to create an edition of 7 books, which I completed at home and gave as holiday gifts that year.  My chosen theme was flowers, and here are my completed books.

Then, just this January I participated in a workshop on the Domestika platform taught by Spanish Illustrator/Artist Jesus Cisneros called Artist Notebooks: Explore Illustration Techniques. It was a wonderful course to stimulate the imagination during this cold, dark, and monochrome season. Cisneros teaches how to create colored paper by rubbing a very thin layer of oil pigment onto the surface with the corner of a paper towel or tissue. Multiple colors can be blended on the same piece, if desired.

Example 1: Oil-rubbed paper cutting, glued to sketchbook

Example 2: Oil-rubbed paper cutting, glued to sketchbook,
with colored pencil added (pink)

Then, using the theme of “garden and forest,” we were encouraged to create a series of symmetrically folded and cut plant and/or insect forms using the paper colored this way. The two examples of this shown here are from my sketchbook. 

This particular technique – rubbing pigment on the paper – is similar to the way that pigments are applied to fabric in katazome. But rather than using oil as the medium, soybean juice is used along with a dry brush. Similar effects such as smooth blending and graduation of color can be achieved. This is one of the qualities of katazome that I particularly enjoy. In addition, with the folded and cut paper designs, there is a play of positive and negative space – “notan” – that is also an important part of designing stencils for katazome.

Please watch this space to see how this project (and workshop plan) progresses! For a full description of the workshop I will be teaching, Click Here.

Learning Japanese Woodblock Printmaking

Two weeks ago I attended a Japanese Woodblock intensive at Highpoint Center for Printmaking in Minneapolis taught by master printer Keiji Shinohara. The week-long intensive was so satisfying–taught by a wonderful artist and encouraging instructor, with just enough time enough to design, carve and print an image.

Some of the unique features of this method of printmaking as compared with Western techniques is that it uses water-based pigments rather than oil-based, a baren (flat, hand-held disc) rather than a press, and that each block of a multiple color print contains the registration marks within it. In developing ideas for a pictorial work, for example, using katazome, it can be frustrating to design and make a layered image, that is, one with more than one stencil. You don’t know are getting you have until you wash the paste off. This is fine when a design for an image or a repeated pattern requires only one stencil, but frustrating for me when I want to layer images and align or register components on top of one another, and then create multiple instances of the image, like prints.

 

Playing with natural dye extracts

Several months ago I put a call out to the diverse community of local textile and fiber enthusiasts asking if there was interest in starting a local natural dye study group affiliated with the Textile Center of Minnesota. At least 15 people responded, and now we have a fledgling natural dye group in the Twin Cities! We met first in March, and will meet again this Wednesday in the Textile Center dye lab. This group is about exploration, experimentation and sharing – i.e. more play than structured learning. At the first meeting, participants shared their lovely naturally dyed samples. (I wish I had taken photos of them). This week we are going to play with Earthues Natural Dye extracts, both immersion and direct application methods. (Earthues has a new blog and hopefully will have an online shop soon.)

In preparation for leading the meeting, I did some playing on my own. Here’s a peek at my wool scrap, followed by some notes describing what I did with it.

I mixed up several colors (cutch, logwood purple, pomegranate and madder), along with iron water and cream of tartar water, and gum tragacanth thickener. I pasted several of my stencils on two large scraps of wool and silk which had been soy sized and mordanted (painted with alum). I added thickener to the natural dye extracts and painted it on. I also painted on iron water and cream of tartar to see what would happen to the colors. My guide for these experiments is the Natural Dye Instruction Booklet by Michele Wipplinger of Earthues, which you can find here. The book covers several methods of applying these natural dyes to cloth.

I used the extracts full strength along with the thickener. I also used the iron water at full strength. Next time I’ll dilute these considerably. When I painted on iron water and cream of tartar water, I could see the color changes instantly. There is a bit of magic to this! I’m excited to learn more about these dyes!