I mentioned the other day that I was doing an illustration for Fukui Shimbun’s New Year’s edition. They do a bunch of children’s stories and illustrations by local artists and authors, and I was lucky enough to be asked to do one of them. The title of my story is 「眠れない夜に」”Nemurenai Yoru Ni.”

The story is about a girl named Miki who can’t sleep so she starts to count sheep. However, all the sheep have come down with influenza, so she can’t count them. Instead she goes to a magic dream world and is transformed in a sheep herself. She offers to help the sheep by helping another young girl fall asleep, so in sheep form, she rides a shooting star to another house. The other sleepless girl turned out to be her classmate, whom she had gotten into a fight with earlier that day. The girl couldn’t sleep because she was upset about fighting with Miki. So sheep-Miki told her it was okay, and in the end everything worked out.

In any case, it’s a simple but cute story. And I hope my illustration goes well with it.

Nemurenai Yoru Ni

This portrait is a bit less ukiyoe-looking and more contemporary than the others I did this month, but it still retains a bit of a woodblock print feel to it; more of a contemporary bijin-ga than an editorial or illustrative piece, I suppose. This one is just a straight portrait, with no meaning behind it, but it was fun to do. Despite not being so old-Japan-looking, it does retain a lot of elements from bijin-ga, such as the cherry blossoms, and simplicity. In case you’re wondering, that’s Philadelphia in the background.

It was done for an old friend, who I promised years ago I would do a portrait for, and after a computer problem last year wiped out her original portait as it was about 95% done, I finally repainted it.

There are a bunch of cherry blossoms along the Schuylkill River in Philly, and they’re a common subject in my paintings. This one isn’t part of the 100 Famous Views of Philadelphia, but I suppose it’s related.

Here’s my next ukiyoe portrait. This one is called Kabukimono, which is kind of a play on meaning. It’s written using an archaic kanji, 傾, which basically meant a person who sees the world a little differently than ordinary people; someone who, when faces with two paths, chooses the harder one and creates miracles in order to succeed. Eventually the word came to be written with different kanji, 歌舞伎, the kabuki style of theater which most folks are familiar with.

There’s a bit of the pretentious artist in me peaking through in this piece as well; I’m trying to say that business and theater are similar to each other. You have to put on a costume, a different face, you have to act really well, and if you don’t keep in character, your audience will lose interest in you. I guess the big difference is that in theater the costumes are much better… which is probably why theater is fun and business is not. Anyway, there you have it.

One of the side projects I’ve been working on while doing the yokai has been another ukiyo-e-style painting. The Adachi Institute of  Woodcut Prints is holding a competition calling for “contemporary ukiyo-e.” What that means isn’t so clear, other than they wanted ukiyo-e that says “now.” I love doing digital ukiyo-e, but it’s always been a pretty typical subject matter for me, landscapes or portraits — nothing in it that I would really consider “contemporary,” except for maybe the medium.

Well, here is my entry, and I’m fairly pleased with it. The text, “いざ、出陣！” is a kind of battle cry, and the title, “女戦士,” means woman warrior. It sounds really corny in English actually… but I like the picture for what it is. If I were to get deep and meaningful about it, I would say that it’s an illustration of the modern Japanese soul — international, liberal, and Westernized, but still retaining a strong connection to it’s ancient traditions, gender roles, and customs. Japan is sort of an enigma in that way, and probably that’s one part of the strong appeal it has to Westerners — so familiar, and yet on another level so incredibly foreign.

I feel silly describing my art in that way… like a stuffy art school student. But I have to describe it that way — in Japanese even — for the contest. Wish me luck!

Onna Senshi