image

SUMI-E DRAWING LESSON

close

Thin Line Drawing Technique (Soku-Hitsu)

Thin Line Drawing :



1. Shape fude sharp

Wash the brush (fude).
Bend the hair of the fude on the cloth. (Take fude down onto the cloth with holding fude stand)
Your power conveys only on the root part of the fude and the tip of the hair (fude-saki) naturally get pointed sharp.

2. Load ink



Bring the sumi ink up with ink bar the upper-deck of the ink stone (suzuri) where the ink (sumi) is not collected.
Put fude hair on the deck so that you get the ink only the behind side of the bent fude hair.

3. Drawing



In drawing line in sumi-e technique, you don't use the very point of the tip like a pen, but use the side of the sharped fude hair. see above image.
Hold fude with the laying down position.
Rotate the fude bar (jiku) in order to get fude hair side along with the surface of the paper.
After touch the paper, take one breath that you get the swell on the starting line point.
Slide the fude the same direction of the fude hair bent tip which means jiku keeps 90 degree toward the line direction during drawing.
Hold the same fude position during the drawing.
The thinness of the fude hair is the thinness of the line.
Both starting and ending point of the line always have the oval swell which give the line a kind of sumi-e fashioned.
If you shape fude hair good (thin) and keep fude slide side, you can get a thin line. You can't get a thin line, unless you move fude a wrong way.

3-1 Left to the Right

Hold the jiku pointing to the right down direction (four o'clock).
Use the right side of the fuse hair on the paper.

3-2 Right to the left

Hold the jiku the right top direction (twelve o'clock). So, fude hair faces toward you. You see jiku over the hair.
Rotate jiku counterclockwise in order to the left side of fude hair.

4. Others

In sumi-e technique, the curving line is depicted by the connected differential straight line.
So, you don't need to curve the line after starting. The movement of fude is always straight.

5. Painting example of thin line drawing technique use

In this painting, all lines are drawn with free hand.
There are no swells on the line.
So, it is different from drawing stems and twigs, which should be depict short straight lines even those are curved in real.
This technique apply to flower petals such as cherry, plum or morning glory

Sumi-e Images on flickr

Sumi-e Tutorial TOP