Saturday, March 26, 2011

illustration friday (toy)


The den-den daiko is a small Japanese rattle drum used for distracting and entertaining babies and young children. It works for me, too. : )

The accompanying words quote the third section of the most well-known lullaby in Japan-- a song called the Edo Lullaby, from which, it is said, all other Japanese lullabies originate. A rough English translation (which loses all the sweet rhythm of the original), borrowed from Wikipedia, goes like this:

Hushabye, Hushabye! My good Baby, Sleep!
Where did my boy's baby-sitter go? Beyond that mountain, back to her home.
As a souvenir from her home, what did you get?
A toy drum and a sho flute.

I drew the outline and the words with a ruined bamboo quill pen (that is now nothing more than a stick with a dull point) dipped in sumi ink.

11 comments:

  1. Love this piece. The diagonal composition with all the brush style lettering is awesome. Well done!

    ReplyDelete
  2. A delightful painting. I like these drums also.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lovely piece with a nice lullaby to accompany it! The Chinese people also have the same traditional toy and it's called 拨浪鼓 (Bo Lang Gu) in Chinese.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Very cool Deb! .... and informative. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  5. So glad you're on IF...it's like getting postcards from Japan when I visit your blog. Beautiful work, as always. You always compose the page beautifully.

    ReplyDelete
  6. LOVE this, Debbie! I love the way the taiko looks like it is still in motion! My Japanese has gotten so rusty, I feel so ashamed I don't recognize all of the kanji. . . Gambatte ne!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Each illustration is a litle bit of information about Japan culture...so good!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I love your style! Asian art has always fascinated me. :-) Thank you so much for stopping by my blog.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Wonderful!! And the translation made me giggle :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Aww, how lovely! Your blog is fantastic, great illustrations and so fascinating :)

    ReplyDelete