illustration friday (teacher)

I love illustrating the Japanese children's songs that I grew up on. This one was inspired by the song Suzume no Gakkou (the sparrows' school) and begins with the line: "The teacher at the sparrow school swings his stick back and forth while chirping chii pappa." In the second stanza, the little student sparrows try to chirp as they are taught but they have a hard time getting it right.

I dipped a single bristle from a bamboo broom into sumi ink to draw this one. It was incredibly difficult to control, but that's the whole point--not to have control.  And I do get some interesting effects this way.

meteor shower

Most poetry baffles me, but this haiku by Juliet Wilson, blogger at Crafty Green Poet, struck an inner chord. It made me think of all the enthusiasm the media drummed up this year over various cosmic phenomena for which much of Japan was supposed to have front-row seats. Our particular piece of the sky was clouded over every time.

a week of foxes

Inspired by The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

origin of quote unclear

Inspired by the Japanese children's song "Ko-Gitsune" (Little Fox)

Inspired by the Japanese children's song "Kita-Kitsune" (Northern fox)

Inspired by "Friends, Lovers, Chocolate" by Alexander McCall Smith

Inspired by the folksong "The Fox" which my mother sang to me when I was little.

A spring festival fox mask with a Kobayashi Issa haiku

illustration friday (freeze)

playing with my owl stamp

Having discovered that I collect owl paraphernalia as a hobby, a friend of mine carved an owl from a rubber eraser for me to use as a "mood stamp" on my etegami. Instead, I've been having loads of fun experimenting with it as the focal image of my etegami, trying it out against a variety of backgrounds. I've posted several examples here that share the same accompanying haiku by Santoka for easier comparison. In the spirit of even more experimentation, I used inks and methods that were completely new to me. All the originals have been mailed off to postcrossers.

illustration friday (bounce)

In Issa's haiku, Kasa often refers to the headgear sometimes translated as "umbrella hats." But here, I chose to interpret kasa to mean the traditional, bamboo-framed umbrellas that were covered in waxed paper. I'm sure many of you have seen one, or even bought one as a souvenir. They are also called wa-gasa (Japanese umbrellas) nowadays to differentiate them from modern, western-style umbrellas. I love the sound of rain bouncing against a wa-gasa. And I can easily imagine how my heart would jump if a camellia blossom ever plopped onto one while I was inside it.

the blue period

Fog Cat

 I can't remember when blue wasn't my absolutely favorite color. And blue goes so well with poetry, don't you think?

The first two etegami posted here were experiments with watercolor inks and watercolor paper--materials I am not at all familiar with, as strange as that may sound to you. They are rare examples of the image coming to me before the words do. But as soon as I finished painting the cat, I just knew that it was the Fog Cat from the Carl Sandburg poem Fog.

Blue Pigeon

The words quoted on the blue pigeon etegami are from the poem Japanese Lullaby by Eugene Field.

Santoka's Owl

The barred owl was done in the traditional etegami manner, with my trusty and true sumi ink, gansai paints, and washi paper, as suits the classic Taneda Santoka haiku. All the originals are for sale on my Etsy shop.