Kyo-Yuzen (dyeing technique) (京友禅)
Kyo-Yuzen (dyeing technique) is one of the traditional arts of Kyoto, and refers to dyeing technique that was designed by Yuzensai MIYAZAKI, who was a painter of folding fan, in the Genroku era. It is painted and dyed in a white silk fabric. It was exposed in Kamo-gawa River (Yodo-gawa Water System) to generate a bright color, but nowadays, it is made in suburbs.
It is also called 'yuzen-zome' (one of the dyeing processes).
Technique
Traditional hand-drawn Yuzen requires extremely time-consuming work composed of twenty six processes for completion, therefore, techniques of dyeing a fabric with models or of print-type dyeing are mainly used.
A rough design is drawn with colors extracted from petals of blue Asiatic Dayflowers, and resisting agents, which are contained in a thin case, are placed on a fabric in a way similar to the way in drawing an outline with ink. The glue made from sticky rice and rice bran was once used, and gum is used nowadays. After that, it is colored, and then painted with the color for a base after covering the entire pattern with glue. The detailed works such as drawing antennas of a butterfly, painting the eyes of a bird, or making gradation, are performed after peeling off the glue which covered the pattern.
It is completed after drying.