dosankodebbie's etegami notebook: diary

Sunday, July 11, 2010

illustration friday (diary)

This week's IF topic brings to mind the series of etegami that I did to record the growth of my strawberry plant last year.

1: The day the strawberry seedling arrived at my house.
2: The day temperatures plummeted and I thought I had lost my plant to frostbite.
3: The day my plant revived and began to grow vigorously.
4. The day I noticed the first sign of fruit.
5: The day I harvested the first ripe strawberry.
6: The day I used the first strawberry as a filling for Ichigo Daiguku, a delicious, traditional Japanese confection.

The original post is here: My Strawberry Diary.

what is etegami?

Etegami (e= "picture"; tegami= "letter/message") are simple drawings accompanied by a few apt words. They are usually done on postcards so that they can be easily mailed off to one's friends. Though etegami has few hard-and-fast rules, traditional tools and materials include writing brushes, sumi ink, blocks of water-soluble, mineral-based pigments called gansai, and washi postcards that have varying degrees of "bleed." They often depict some ordinary item from everyday life, especially items that bring a particular season to mind.