Janet's Tallit

I was thinking I'd get some photos when I delivered this, but when you deliver something at the end of Purim festivities, there tends to be not quite sufficient light. Another time! As such, I only have a couple pictures its progress.

For the atarah, Janet wanted the text from the beginning of Psalm 121 (I lift my eyes to the mountains...). I painted it in in silver with a charcoal metallic border around the letters to make them more readable, and added a translation in English along the very bottom. She also wanted mountains on the tallit, and so I did some painting.

I centered the mountain so that when Janet wears the tallit, you get a clear mountain scene on the back and a more abstract colored look from the front. The green pattern along the bottom was later shaded in using a lighter green to give a sense of new green fields, snowy mountains, and bright blue sky. The sky part was my favorite. You know how, on certain perfect winter days, the sky turns a brilliant, crisp blue? That's the color Janet wanted. I dyed the fabric in a gradient. I knew a whole lot of the tallit was going to be just blue, so I wanted some whorls and freckles and variations in the dye to give it texture and interest and keep it from being too stark. I love the color. When I got the dye set and everything washed proper I kept touching the fabric. I just wanted to wrap myself up in that color!

What I don't have pictured here are the pinot. Each corner has a square of a white velvet, taken from a decommissioned Torah cover. Since that fabric has absorbed so much holiness and positive intention, it seems proper to find it new homes in ritual objects.

Rowan's tallit - in progress

My friends Rowan and Tyler each commissioned a tallit from me recently. They're both into blues and greens, saturated colors, and nature. Tyler's is going to have tree branches and leaves in a big pattern, and Rowan's will have the seven species (wheat, barley, grapes, dates, figs, pomegranates, and olives!) painted as though they were growing in a garden. I've gotten to work on the painting, so here's a little glimpse:

The first picture is the beginning of establishing the background. I wanted to evoke the look that you get when you take a picture of the sky and the sun glare appears as a cool, geometric white glow. The second one shows wheat and barley arcing up towards the sun, with the background blue and white swirls that make up the background (those are block printed, while the rest is painted).