Etegami by the Sea

A sampling of some finished pieces. 

sumi

watercolors

a tissue and some turnip greens

After participating in etegami class last week I was invited to attend a different group out on town by my sensei, Shoko.  I spent a wonderful Friday afternoon with a nice group of ladies at a lovely little cafe called "Private" where we chit chatted and made Japanese folk-art.  

Our subjects were turnips, a lily, and a yellow bell pepper. 

Below are the 2 drawings I made.  

I chose to draw the turnip and the lily since I drew a green bell pepper last week.  

"The turnip's tail" 

Lily of Chigasaki

I love this style of drawing.  There are no rough drafts, and there are no such things as mistakes.  3 simple elements to make etegami are: the line, the message, and color.   The lines are full of energy and movement, however it is a slow process.  We were instructed to draw 1mm per second.  We also give up a majority of our control of the evenness and thickness of the lines by the way we hold the paintbrush. The paintbrush is held vertically with just your index finger, middle finger, and thumb grasping the end of the brush. As you draw, you keep the brush as perpendicular to the paper as possible.   There were a lot of shaky arms.  The message is written from right to left and might not have anything to do with the image you created.  The message might be a simple greeting, a poem, or just a statement on how you feel.  There really aren't rigid rules to this art-form.  Coloring is a much faster process; load up the rounded brushes* with pigment and dab away making sure to leave some white.

I finished my etegami with a little hankou (signature stamp) that Shoko sensei carved for me.  She also sent me home with some homemade madeleine cookies and a case to keep our received and unsent postcards in.  I love Japanese culture of hospitality and kindness.  It's something I'm looking forward to bringing back to the states, along with etegami.

xoxo
Char



*I'll be sure to get a shot of the 3 different brushes next time.