Progress Continues on the Kousa Dogwood Commission

Progress continues on the commission piece. here are some additional photos. The photo at left is where I am transferring the design onto freezer paper. I cut my stencils from the freezer paper. This slick sided paper will stick tightly to fabric when heated with a hot iron. Getting a close contact makes for crisp images when stenciling. The second photo is of the Kousa berry after a number of edits. Still more to come. A couple of the leaves have been inked as well. The red orange berry is really popping against the green leaves.

Enjoy.

Nancy

Progress on Kousa Commission

This first photo is the second day of stenciling with inks on the Kousa berry. The second photo is after the third layer of inking. Working with Tsukineko inks is a lot like working with watercolors - I must preserve the lightest areas and add the color one layer at a time.

A good thing about taking progress photographs is to see the work in a new dimension. While the berry proportions are the same as the original dimensions, it seems out of balance to me. I am going to enlarge the berry in the lower area. I will show the changes in the next posting.

The white surrounding materials are the templates used to stencil the design onto the fabric. The green lines are the stenciled veins in the leaves around the berry.


Nancy

The Kousa is Coming to the Doctors' Lounge at CMC-Mercy Hospital

The Kousa Dogwood is a lovely understory tree that is Asian in origin. As our native Flowering Dogwood increasingly succumbs to a disease called Dogwood anthracnose, tree specialists are recommending that when necessary to replace our natives that we use the Kousa Dogwood with a similar flower. The Kousa is much more resistant to disease than our native.

The Kousa's flower is generally pointed at the ends, unlike our native, and blooms about 4-7 weeks later in the spring. The berry is quite different, looking more like a cross between a strawberry and a raspberry. It is edible, but not particularly flavorful. Leaves and tree structure are quite similar to our native.

Given the tree's good disease resistance, it seems a natural choice for a doctor's lounge. My design for the lounge is based on photographs and specimens from my garden. I find the leaves to have lovely rhythm to them and the berry is a marvel.

Nancy