Hello from Sydney! ✨
Time flies, and we’re already in February of 2024.
I was surprised by the news of the Noto Peninsula earthquake in Japan right at the beginning of the new year.
For me, who experienced the Kobe big earthquake in 2005, the hardship of being without electricity and water during the cold season, losing job, and the uncertainty of when normal life would return are not someone else’s business.
I find myself checking the news every day.
To those who have been affected, I sincerely pray for a swift return to everyday life.
In early November last year, I checked my website and found it had disappeared.
When I contacted the hosting company, they said the account was suspended and the website was gone because they had not received any response despite sending multiple update notices.
Although I hadn’t received any notifications, I told them and paid the fees, but the website was irretrievable, so I decided to give up and am currently working on creating a new one.
There are many things I want to restore, such as the basic eco-printing techniques and workshops I had on the original website.
Anyway what’s gone is gone, now I’m taking it as an opportunity to create something new and have been working on it little by little.
The eucalyptus tree planted in our front yard has been growing rapidly, and there’s a small eucalyptus sapling on the roof of my partner’s garage.
We planted each mini baby eucalyptus tree in our backyard, and as you can see in the picture, it grew so quickly and already providing a nice shade for our chickens.
I purchased a small eucalyptus tree with round leaves called “eucalyptus cinerea” from the native plant nursery and added to my eucalyptus tree collection. They are all flourishing.
Last January, our family unexpectedly welcomed Kimmy, a Doberman puppy, and it changed our daily lives totally.
We had to prepare her kennel, build a fence to separate her from our existing pets – chickens, take her for vaccinations, play with her every day, and incorporate walks into our routine.
While it was challenging to adapt to having a new family member, Kimmy is now fully a part of our family.
Having a dog brings joy, but it also made it difficult to place eco-printing materials outside, steam bundles outside, and dry finished pieces.
The bathroom I originally used for eco-printing was now occupied, so I had to move everything, including pots, dyes, and electric stoves, somewhere else.
After moving everything to the second floor, I struggled to figure out where to set up the space for using an electric stove. As a result, I distanced myself from eco-printing for a while.
Since the website went down in November, I have been making efforts to restore it. Recently,
I finally created a small space on
the second-floor balcony to place the electric stove and decided to resume eco-printing.
Despite it being summer in Sydney, it has been cloudy and rainy for about a week, resembling the humid, rainy days of summer in Japan.
But now, the sun is shining again, and it’s over 30 degrees. There are beautiful flowers like crepe myrtle, bougainvillea, and frangipani (Plumeria) blooming.
For the first eco-printing in a while, I used fallen frangipani flowers from our blooming garden, shocking pink flowers of four o’clock plant (Osiribana in Japanese) reaching over from the neighbor’s house, fallen silky oak leaves and flowers found during a walk, and a fern leaf that accidentally broke at my partner’s garage door.
I decided to use them on pre-washed natural cotton fabric for printing.
To bring out the vibrancy of the flowers while outlining them in a dark color.
I mordanted while hoping the pink of the frangipani would turn blue.
Concerned about the colors fading, I experimented with a lower temperature and shorter duration for steaming.
The result is that the silky oak, being a plant with a lot of tannins, produced a dazzling yellow finish. Especially the flowers of the silky oak turned a radiant yellow.
On the balcony, it’s already outside, and I can quickly see the colors. Moreover, I can take photos and videos while drying. It’s convenient, and I enjoyed it!
The slightly pink part of the frangipani flower printed a faint blue, and Osiribana barely retained a bit of red. Maybe if I had shortened the time even more, I could have achieved even more beautiful colours.
Looking at the cute eco-print with a refreshing summer atmosphere, I thought, “How cute,” “How beautiful,” and once again, I became captivated by eco-printing once again.
Eco-printing captures the colors and shapes of plants, so you never know the results until you open the bundle.
Even if you plan to create something specific by printing this and that, it often doesn’t go as expected.
This time, I didn’t have a specific plan for creating something, but after looking at the finished piece,
I felt, “This piece wants to be a wall hanging”
As always, I feel that eco-printing is an expression of each plants, which is living indivisual colour and shapes.
I believe the plants themselves decide what they want to become.
In 2024, I plan to announce tutorials on colorful printing methods and printing on leather using natural dyeing techniques. I also hope to conduct workshops online or in-person (only in Sydney) while experimenting other method of ecoprinting.
If you’re interested, I’m conducting basic eco-print workshops on ZOOM, so feel free to contact me via email.
Wishing that 2024 brings various happy surprises and joys along with Australia’s wonderful plants.
“Moments of solitude with Mother Nature is sunshine to a soul.” — Anthony Douglas Williams