Love

[gurdymonkey]

 At one point during last night's party,didjimandecided it was time to grind up some ink and indulge in one of his passions. "So,"  he said to me, "I understand you have a Japanese name you use in the SCA. Do you know how to write it? " Well, not really, no. I have it in hiragana somewhere but I haven't practiced it for ages. So I fed him the syllablic elements and he looks up the various kanji on the computer. It helps that I know the meanings of each root element as well as how they're spelled in romaji. 


Some time later, he presented me with this. The large character is "Ai" or "Love." The top three at right are for "Saionji", the bottom two are "Hanae."  It goes without saying how deeply touched and honored I am to have been presented with this work of art.

Suggestions on how best to get the paper to lie more smoothly before I attempt to frame it more permanently are gratefully appreciated!

Comments

[ladycelia.livejournal.com]

That's just gorgeous.

[takadai-no-tora.livejournal.com]

You can try pressing it and the fibers may relax a little on their own over the next few days, but it may never go completely flat where it has cockled around the large kanji.

There's got to be a framers local to you that has someone who knows about mounting a piece like this--I'd try asking them.

[gurdymonkey.livejournal.com]

I admit I'm afraid to mess with it. I think I'll let it lie flat for a few days and see if that helps.

[takadai-no-tora.livejournal.com]

If I were going to try pressing it, I wouldn't use any heavy weights, more like a single layer of fairly thick magazines. Wait and see is probably the best policy.

[la-peregrina.livejournal.com]

*bowing low* Beautiful, just beautiful!

[sengokudaimyo.livejournal.com]

Majorly sweet. He's got good brush control.

I hate him already. ;)

[didjiman.livejournal.com]

The traditional way is to spray wet it, and then use rice glue to stick it on another piece of paper.

I am REALLY lousy at it. The spraying part is easy, and it's amazing to see the paper just flattens out, it's lifting it off part and then apply glue part that kills me. The ink won't smear, BTW. I have couple pieces on the wall that are clearly done by my un-careful hands.

Karisu is better at that.

[gurdymonkey.livejournal.com]

I just laid it out on the ironing board and gave it a spritz. If it will dry flat all by itself, I'd just as soon dry mount it rather than worry about glue stains.

[didjiman.livejournal.com]

Let me know how it works. The rice glue won't give it a stain. Just that applying glue to wet paper, and then trying to life the said wet paper off and stick it to another piece of rice paper have too many points of failure.

[gryffindorgrrl.livejournal.com]

That is absolutely gorgeous *drooling* I understand completely about not wanting to mess with it too much.

I don't know what type of paper this is, but I've had some luck with the following method for illumination projects. It's an adaption of the method for stretching vellum/parchment that I modified for use with cotton drafting vellum (yay, budget options!). It has worked fine for me with modern papers, but if at all possible I would suggest trying it with a blank page of the same paper used in the artwork to test first.

On a flat, impervious surface (I use a glass coffee table) layer...

3 or 4 dry paper towels
One damp paper towel (thoroughly wetted but then wrung out and spread even in top of the dry paper towels)
artwork (ink side up away from the wet paper towel)
piece of saran wrap on top of the artwork (anti-sticking device)
a moderately heavy, large book

Leave it sitting for an hour and then check the paper - it should be just slightly damp and the paper should have a bit of give to it. If not, put it back and wait another hour. When it's been sitting long enough the wrinkles should have flattened out.

Once it's flat you can try letting it dry and see if it stays flat, but more often than not mine end up puckering as they dry :-/ I usually mount a piece while it's still slightly damp and has that bit of that stretch to it - it's a pain in the butt and very nerve wracking, but if it's stretched out a bit on the mounting board it should dry flat. I'd really recommend trying it with a blank piece of paper first to get a feel for how much it gives.

On a side note, I usually mount my projects on a piece of board that's just slightly smaller than the art page so I can wrap the edges around and glue them to the underside of the board...but there's detail on this beautiful piece that goes fairly close to the edge so I'm not sure that would work :-/

[danabren.livejournal.com]

Incredible