illustration friday (shiny)

"Shiny" brings to mind the blue-backed fish of the sea, which includes mackerel, sardines, pacific saury, herring, and Japanese amberjack. All of them are very, very popular on our dinner table. When ordered in Japanese sushi restaurants, they are commonly called hikarimono, or "the shiny ones."

Here is an etegami showing sunlight catching the scales of a huge school of sardines swimming in the sea. This is a new version of an etegami I painted almost exactly a year ago, illustrating a poem by the Japanese poet and songwriter Misuzu Kaneko (1903-1930).  I've translated it below, but haven't quite captured the rhythm of the Japanese version, or conveyed the unsentimental pathos of the original. I will keep working on it. But roughly translated, it goes like this:

The Big Haul

Beneath a glowing sunrise,

the fishing boats return,

loaded with Ooba Sardines.

On shore, villagers celebrate like it's a festival.

In the sea, sardines hold a funeral

for their tens of thousands of mates.