Before starting to draw

- Put sumi ink into a brush(fude).
- First light ink, then take more black one.
- Five steps of ink dip procedure to get gradation.
- The most black ink in the ink stone, is the last dip procedure.
- Well-organized preparation is essential for achieving sumi-e beauty

Stroke

- Keep the elbow the same height.
- Keep the same power in one stroke otherwise you lose the black ink.


Leaf

- Make brush straight line drawing (choku-hitsu) style.
- Load black sumi ink. Do the five level of sumi loading procedure.
- The first touch of fide hair is the tip.
- Then push fude onto the paper along with keep fude moving down.
- Right after pushing fude, pull fude up.
- Then, snap fude lift up in order to make leaf tip sharp.
- The last part that take off of the paper is the tip(fude saki)
- The third and fourth stroke compose 90 degree toward the first stroke leaf. (see the above)

Set

- Five leaves comprise one set.
- One set is depicted with one time sumi loading.
- The second leaf overlay on the first one.
Each sequence is overlaid with the next one.

Stem

- Short start, longer then.
- Slide on the point, strong push, then wipe out

Brush

- Keep the shape right
- Need wash out every time your stroke finish
- Sumi-ink on paper gets lighter when it dried.
- Contrast between black and white is important

Video



Sumi-e Images on Flickr

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