Ripples in the Works

First of all, apologies for nothing showing up over the weekend. We had some glitch that wasn’t letting us post. It took all weekend to get it figured out so we had to just abandon our Saturday post. I’m aiming to make up for that with a Sunday post this week.

This week we’re going to look at rippling and related visuals. Inspired by Shibori and Shibori like items on Pinterest, my editorial assistant Paula Gilbert, sent me a number of links to Shirbori like pieces. Shibori, according to the entry on Wikipedia, is a Japanese tie-dying technique. There are an infinite number of ways one can bind, stitch, fold, twist, or compress cloth for Shibori, and each way results in very different patterns.”

In polymer, folding or fitting together sections of blended clay can readily emulate the look of shibori. This beautiful bracelet was created by Kim Cavender, and looks to be inspired by a common folded and stitched technique used with silks in Shibori. Her notes on Flickr do point to dyed silk ribbons as the inspiration.

If you want to see the wide variety of Shibori techniques out there, just punch the term into Google images, Pinterest or Flickr and you will find yourself just drowning in all the luscious textures and colors shibori artists’ offer. And for more Kim Cavender, take a look at her Flickr pages and her blog.

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