I have new stencils to show you. The first one JA144 Cormorant Fishing
One of our regular customers asked me whether we had a stencil of fishing boats in the moonlight.....and we didn't. However, years ago Chips and I had sketched a raft-type boat strung with oriental lanterns with the intention to design a stencil from it. As it turned out our lantern boat design was too fussy but three other stencils were created and I will feature each in a separate post.
Let me introduce you to our JA144 Cormorant Fishing stencil.
The subject of the stencil comes from the Nagara River in Japan where for a short season each year fisherfolk sail the river at night catching Sweet Fish with their trained cormorants. I did some research and found that fishing with cormorants has been practised in many countries including Britain. The cormorant fishing in Gifu Province is known as Ukai and has been an annual tradition along Nagaragawa River near Gifu Castle for over 1300 years.
The master fisher is known as an Usho, they depend on the birds for their livelihood and take good care of them. It takes 2 or 3 years to train the birds for fishing. Traditionally, the fishing boats have a crew of three people but our chap is alone with his birds, the mountains, Gifu Castle and the moonlight.
The stencil has two layers. It can be used as a border or an allover repeat. There are registration marks on both layers and they enable the stenciller to match up the layers and pattern repeats with ease.
One of the great benefits of using a stencil is the huge array of colours that you can choose from. Another benefit is the variety of surfaces that be decorated with stencils Usually if a surface can accept paint it can be stencilled.
Nagara Cormorant is available in two sizes but we can make other sizes on request. This post features the standard size. Where might you use our new stencil?
Helen
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