sketchbook project 2011

Submitting to art challenges helps me maintain a steady pace of producing etegami. I've blogged about some of them in previous posts. Illustration Friday is one such challenge that has kept me on my toes because it renews every week, and the topics often boggle my mind.

You may have noticed the Sketchbook Project banner somewhere along the right edge of this page and wondered about it. If you haven't already done so, click on the banner and check it out. I thought about it for months before I actually joined, and once my notebook came, it took me almost as long to pull my ideas together, because it's the most large-scale art challenge I've ever attempted. I have to somehow fill up a notebook of fifty pages with artwork based on the theme of "if you lived here..." (I chose the theme from a list they gave me.)

I finally decided to combine the Sketchbook Project with a goal I set for myself at the beginning of this year of producing up to 150 etegami illustrating Japanese proverbs. Since the pages of the notebook are thin and slick, it doesn't work to paint directly on them. I have to print out copies of my etegami and glue them into the notebook. The result is sloppier than I would have liked, and the colors not as vibrant, but I'm trying to accept that.

I'm half-way through the notebook, and thought it was time to post some sample pages. I will probably be adding some hand-written trivia and doodles in the blank spaces of some of the pages, but not much.

illustration friday (beneath)

tea field art contest results

Remember the tea field photo and art contest I urged you to submit to a couple months back? Well, the results came out today. The winning entry was one of mine. Yup. Now don't you wish you had submitted something? It was fun.

the french connection

A few days ago I received some mailart from @yun of France, who interacts actively with us on this blog. Enclosed with the card were two blank sheets of 45-gram-weight washi paper that appeared to be the right dimensions for hanshi, which is what we call the thin-ish washi sheets used for calligraphy practice.

Yun asked me to test the paper to see if it was a suitable substitute for the kind of washi cards I have recommended for etegami use. It seems she is able to find sumi ink, gansai paints, and traditional Japanese writing brushes in France, but not washi cards. So she had the idea of gluing washi paper to stiff cards cut out of cereal boxes. I tried out her idea.

I used the traditional Japanese writing and coloring brushes to paint the first two etegami (photo at the top), without first gluing them to a stiff back. I was happy with the way the sumi spread on the paper. The gansai paint also went on adequately, with a good amount of nijimi (bleed), but it tended to seep through the thin paper and wet the surface beneath. If I hadn't been careful, the pool of paint that collected beneath the paper would have stained the uncolored parts of the etegami as well. Fortunately, this didn't happen. After the etegami were dry, I glued them to cards cut from the back of a taco shell box. The washi paper tended to wrinkle as I glued it to the stiffer surface, but I managed to spread it flat enough that the wrinkles aren't too obvious.

Next, I tested it with the bamboo quill pen, but I thought it would work better if I glued the paper to a stiff back first. This worked great! (photo below) I was more careful with the colors this time, so there was no serious seepage. My conclusion is that this method works very well as a substitute for washi postcards. NOTE: Paint on the rough side of the washi sheet, not the smooth side.

Thanks, Yun! Yun also sent me a vibrant octopus etegami she had made, using the same washi paper glued to a stiff backing. I've posted it on the mailart gallery blog, so be sure to take a look.

singing cricket

I fixed the misspelling of Dickinson's name, just in case you noticed it before. ;p (very embarassing)

illustration friday (old-fashioned)

For this week's IF challenge, I chose this etegami depicting geta (traditional wooden clogs) from my Japanese proverbs series. The accompanying words mean [There's no knowing the outcome] until it's time to put your geta back on. The saying has its roots in the unpredictability of Go matches. Go is "an ancient board game for two players that is noted for being rich in strategy despite its simple rules." (Wikipedia). Hence, you never know the final outcome till the very end, when it's time to put your shoes back on and go home. Another traditional touch in this picture is that the person belonging to the feet is wearing indigo-dyed samue, the traditional (=old-fashioned) working clothes of Japanese artisans.

I've attached more "old-fashioned" footwear etegami with proverbs below. The first two show waraji (cheap sandals made from straw rope), and the next two show zouri (thonged sandals, made of better material, and more fashionable, than waraji)

1. To wear two pairs of waraji (one person doing two jobs or fulfilling two roles).
2. Find yourself a wife that is older than you, even if you have to wear waraji made from metal. (ie: Metal waraji, if there were such a thing, might make walking difficult but would not quickly wear out. A woman who is a year or more older than her husband has great potential for making a good wife, making it worth a long and difficult search for her.)
3 & 4. To screw up just as you're putting on your zouri. (No matter how well things are going at first, you can ruin all previous success by screwing up at the very end.)

proverbial cows

Here is a series of etegami based on cow-related proverbs. Some may be familiar to you, others less so. Since cow faces featured prominently in Issa's cows, I tried to refer to the cow a little more indirectly this time. The one posted here at the top quotes an African proverb. I don't know which tribal group or language culture, but it obviously comes from one which values cow dung for its usefulness in daily life. I wasn't trying to be gross or anything. (Those black marks are cow hoof prints, by the way!)

Of the etegami and etegami collages shown below, the only one that doesn't come with English writing is the Japanese proverb that reads: Tsuno o tamete, Ushi o korosu, which translates roughly to: Killing the cow while trying to straighten its horn. It has a similar meaning to the English saying "strain at a gnat and swallow a camel." (obsessing over minor things and screwing up something major).




I think I'm finished with cows for a while. But I would be thrilled if any of you want to send me your own hand-painted etegami or other mailart based on a cow proverb, song, or poem from your own culture. :D