typographic katagami stencil series

As promised, this post is a quick little snapshot overview of 4 of the 5 completed, hand-cut katagami stencils in the hiragana 's.' typographic series.

These beautiful professional photographs were taken by Andrew Sikorski of Art Atelier Photography - thank you Andrew!

hiragana 'shi'

hiragana 'su'

hiragana 'se'

hiragana 'so'

typographic katagami stencil four: hiragana shi

This design, based on the hiragana character 'shi', is the fourth katagami stencil in the typographic series.

In my next post I will include professional photographs of 4 of the 5 katagami stencils in the series.

typographic katagami stencil three: hiragana sa

This design, based on the hiragana character 'sa', is the third katagami stencil in the typographic series. The complete series is based on the 5 hiragana characters which start with 's' - 'sa', 'shi', 'su', 'se' and 'so'.

typographic katagami stencil two: hiragana so

The second typographic katagami stencil is complete - yippee!! I'm pleased to be able to show you a couple of images of the finished stencil: hiragana 'so'.

typographic katagami stencil design: hiragana so

A second typographic katagami stencil is underway - I have been spending evenings, weekends and every spare moment hand cutting the delightful smelling smoky katagami paper. This design is based on the hiragana character 'so'.

typographic katagami stencil one: hiragana se

The finished typographic katagami stencil using the hiragana letter 'se' - hand cut and ready to use.

typographic katagami stencil design: hiragana se

It has been a while between posts - 2012 has been whizzing past in a flurry of fun and excitement. It has been a big year. Marriage, purchasing our first home, new jobs. We don't do things in halves!

But back to the studio and a new katagami stencil is underway. I am working on cutting a new typographic design - hiragana se - progress shot below.

applying nori | furoshiki three

Knowing that the nori is now the right consistency, I can happily move on to applying paste to a third stencil which can dry while I take some time to colour mix a new range of colours using straight 3% dye mixtures.

I chose to work with the first katagami stencil that I drew and cut for my JUMP project - the jitensha design in the urban series. Below are a few action shots of the pasting process.

The jitensha stencil pasted with nori

The big reveal...

Jitensha furoshiki drying after adding sand and stretching with shinshi

furoshiki two | pavement

The second furoshiki - the pavement pattern from the urban series - is finished. Dyed, fixed and washed.

This furoshiki was over-dyed using the same strength of dye as the background colour and, as suspected, the dye mixture wasn't strong enough. The design is far more subtle than intended.

I'll take some more time to colour mix using straight 3% dye mixtures (rather than watering 3% mixtures down). Challenge accepted!