is a Japanese technique of

resist dyeing Resist dyeing (resist-dyeing) is a traditional method of dyeing textiles with patterns. Methods are used to " resist" or prevent the dye from reaching all the cloth, thereby creating a pattern and ground. The most common forms use wax, some ty ...

that involves drawing rice-paste designs on cloth,

dye Juan de Guillebon, better known by his stage name DyE, is a French musician. He is known for the music video of the single "Fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical ele ...

ing the cloth, and then washing off the paste.Reiko Mochinaga Brandon. Country Textiles of Japan: The Art of Tsutsugaki. Weatherhill; 1986. , The rice paste is typically made from sweet rice, which has a high

starch Starch or amylum is a polymeric carbohydrate consisting of numerous glucose units joined by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by most green plants for energy storage. Worldwide, it is the most common carbohydrate in human diet ...

content and is therefore rather sticky. The paste is applied through a tube () similar to a

piping bag A pastry bag (or piping bag in the Commonwealth) is an often cone- or triangular-shaped bag made from cloth, paper, plastic, or the intestinal lining of a lamb, that is squeezed by hand to ''pipe'' semi-solid foods by pressing them through a nar ...

. A related process is to apply the paste through a stencil, a technique known as . The cloth dyed is typically

cotton Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure ...

, and the dye is typically

indigo InterGlobe Aviation Limited (d/b/a IndiGo), is an India, Indian airline headquartered in Gurgaon, Haryana, India. It is the largest List of airlines of India, airline in India by passengers carried and fleet size, with a 64.1% domestic market ...

, so the design is usually white on blue. Banners for shops or other purposes are sometimes made in this manner. The designs are often creatures from

Japanese mythology Japanese mythology is a collection of traditional stories, folktales, and beliefs that emerged in the islands of the Japanese archipelago. Shinto traditions are the cornerstones of Japanese mythology. The history of thousands of years of contac ...

such as the crane or the

tortoise Tortoises ( ) are reptiles of the family Testudinidae of the order Testudines (Latin for "tortoise"). Like other turtles, tortoises have a shell to protect from predation and other threats. The shell in tortoises is generally hard, and like o ...

, or a family crest, or a name (written in

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

). Flowers and trees are common motifs as well.

References

Bibliography

* ''Tsutsugaki Textiles of Japan: Traditional Freehand Paste Resist Indigo Dyeing Technique of Auspicious Motifs''. Kyoto: Shikosha, 1987. Text by Sachio Yoshioka; editor, Noriko Hirai; collector, Gensho Sasakura. * Reiko Mochinaga Brandon. ''Country Textiles of Japan: The Art of Tsutsugaki''. Honolulu Academy of the Arts, 1986. {{fabric Japanese dyeing techniques Japanese art terminology Japanese words and phrases