Rising Sun

The subject of cranes, pines, and the rising sun, are a set composition for New Year pictures in Japan. The red feathers on the cranes’ heads echo the red of the rising sun. This scroll was an experiment in layering silk on paper for the artwork. Scroll paintings on silk use a particular kind of semi-transparent fabric called eginu. When you take the backings off, the painted sections appear to float on the transparent silk. Since this scroll was falling apart, I cut the top section, of the round sun and a bit of pine branch, and layered it over one of Sally MacLaren’s “moto” characters. (see Sally no Moto.)

I made a simple edging of recycled gold patterned silk, with dark green Shantung silk for the mounting. The finials are orange nail polish bottles.

The companion piece is a scroll where I layered the cranes from the original silk painting over an abstract crane painted on paper by Michael Hofmann. (see Cranes).