Day 212 ~ Use the world of fish as inspiration.

This piece is 6" X 8". It's the first of these projects that I made with the intention of framing it and putting it in a show to sell.

The kimono is made of watercolor paper that I painted, cut out and folded over around the 'shoulders' to the back. I've painted the other side of the paper where it shows through into the neck opening. A beveled and sanded mimosa stick holds up the arm holes. I've drilled a hole through each to attach the chenille yarn up to the bead that I made from polymer clay. The yarn goes through the piece there and ties in the back. The bead is stained with black acrylic paint. There are small brass findings hanging from the mimosa sticks where the yarn goes through, which you can't see very well in this photo, but they look like fishing lure pieces, to me anyway. The kimono is mounted onto another piece of watercolor paper, painted and stamped, and that is mounted to black foam core board where I've drawn in a repeated wavy design with a grey pencil.

The idea for the kimono came to me when, to get inspired as to what to do for this project, I was looking through my reference books for illustrations of fish. Opulence, The Kimonos and Robes of Itchiku Kubota hopped off the shelf and opened itself. From it I used the motif from one of the kimonos that had the faded green to clay to grey with the waves bleached out. The fish are not Japanese, but from the design on a Mayan vase, depicting two famous characters in Maya mythology, the Hero twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, who allowed themselves to be sacrificed. Their bones were ground up and thrown into a river from which they later emerged as catfish people. Thought you might not have known about that.