Designing women…..and one man…..

On Wednesday morning, we met first in the auditorium and Elizabeth showed us a wide selection of work done with Arashi Shibori Dyed fabrics.  We all oohed and aahed as each piece flickered on the screen, each secretly hoping that our work will turn out as well…..wishful thinking!!!!

When we returned to the studio, we were told to start with an inspiration photo or idea and begin sketching.  Now this is the part that I was NOT looking forward to, especially since I have not done much drawing and have no confidence in it.  I ended up retreating to the library and starting looking at photos of the Roman Coliseum and  drawing arches of every shape and size.

We met again as a group and showed what we had done and Elizabeth’s suggestion to me was to pick one arch and develop a simple design around it.  As she saw this inspiration photo……

…….she said  “ooh look at this one…..it already has an archway with rectangles around it!”   Enough said….that became my new design!!!

I started by sketching it several times, adding and removing bits each time.  This was the original design……….and these are my modifications.  The final choice is on the right……

Next we talked about shading and were instructed to photocopy our final image several times and use three or more shades of black to color the design…..and to repeat this a bunch of times.

I think that I am going to go with the far left one.

The final step of this process is to pick out the fabrics that go with our shadings.  At this point most of us realized that we didn’t have quite the right fabrics, so there was a mad dash for the dyes just before dinner.    The problem is that you add the dyes, then wait an hour, add the soda ash and wait another hour, then soak for a time period (various persons wait from 15 minutes to 12 hours) and then wash in the washing machine.

I got my last set rinsed out just before 9:00 and called it a day.  The final wash can come in the morning!!!