My first Choju-Giga, scrolls of frolicking animals and humans.

One year has passed since I started leaning Japanese style painting.  During the first nine months, I was not allowed to even grip a brush to draw.  Instead, I was told to practice drawing lines, glasses, boxes and sketching flowers to acquire the very basic skills, which is useful for both Japanese and Western painting.

At last, the time has come!  After going through the long boring period of training, I reached the starting point to begin Japanese style painting.  My first lesson was replicating some of the scenes from Choju-Giga, or scrolls of frolicking animals and humans.  OMG!  It’s one of my favorite art pieces.  It was too good to be true.

Choju-giga were drawn in the Heian period by Toba Sojo and other painters.  It depicts the life of wild animals such as frogs, rabbits and monkeys as if they were human beings.  A frog and a rabbit are playing sumo wrestling.  Some rabbits are playing archery.  The livery description of animals evokes some feelings like how wonderful our lives are.

Choju-Giga is considered to be an origin of Japanese manga, or comics.  Although they don't have any speech balloons on the screen, I can imagine the sounds of laughing, singing and shouting coming out of the picture. 

Replicating pictures is a good way to come very close to the painters.  When I trace the lines, I feel the breath of the artist.  “Maybe, he must have stopped his brush here” or “he might have been confident with this strong stroke.”  As I copied his lines, I could understand more about this picture than when I was just looking at them. 

↓Thank you very much for your click

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