sumi chat

Etegami using only sumi, without gansai colors

Let me tell you what little I know about sumi, the black ink we use for making the outlines and words in Etegami. In English, we call a pressed-and-dried cake of sumi an inkstick. To make ink from the inkstick, it has to be continuously ground against an inkstone with a small quantity of water to produce a dark liquid which is then applied to paper with an ink brush. Sumi is made primarily from soot and animal glue, which doesn't sound at all attractive, but the finished product is sublime in color, fragrance, and writing texture. Read more detail about the sumi-producing process on the Boku-undo website.

liquified sumi for Etegami use

In Etegami, it is common to use a pre-liquified form of sumi that comes in plastic bottles. The price varies widely with the quality of the product. The product I normally use is a concentrated liquid of very high quality (and cost) that comes in the gray bottle and light blue box in the photograph above. A bit of this ink should be poured into a separate bottle with a tight-fitting cap, and diluted with more than ten times as much water before using. Never pour leftover ink back into the original bottle with the unused ink. The other bottle, the black one with the white cap and spout, I purchased from a 100-yen shop. It is used without dilution, and is good enough for young school children doing calligraphy practice. I learned to my dismay, that this cheaper ink smears when it comes into contact with gansai paints, so it really doesn't suit etegami. All sumi stains and is difficult, or even impossible, to remove from clothing.

cheap sumi smears when gansai paint is added to the image