Hello, I’m a writer of KARAKURIJAPAN, Mr. Karakuri. Mr. Nishimoto, who is an instructor of iro-moji(colored calligraphy), wrote “shishi(lion)” as an art. Shishi is known as one of the traditional Japanese cultures, Shishimai(lion dance). An amazing work of iro-moji is done.

Shishi = lion in Japanese

What kind of image do you have for shishi? Japanese people can imagine it easily, but foreigners can’t. To explain for them, it’s just a lion. It’s made from a lion.

This is an image of shishi in Japan

Source：http://www.weblio.jp/content/%E7%8D%85%E5%AD%90%E5%9B%B3%E7%9B%AE%E8%B2%AB

Foreigners might think “Really? Is it a lion?” like that, but this is a lion in traditional Japanese culture, and it’s called shishi. So a Japanese lion is shishi.

What is shishimai(lion dance)?

Shishimai is a dance performed in festivals in Japan. Most Japanese people have seen it, especially in country side. Even visitors from foreign countries come to see it. If you haven’t seen it, watch this video to experience the atmosphere.

How was it? This is shishi. Then, how will he write it in iro-moji? Let’s check it out!

Make shishimai an art by iro-moji(colored calligraphy)!

Watch the video at first. It’s amazing. It represents features of shishi, especially this curly letters. Beautiful.

How to write shishi in iro-moji

Please watch the video for detail. And I’ll explain it with images below.

▲Write letters by water to make base, and then put colors little by little. You’ll get fascinated by letters and colors written smoothly.

▲More and more colors are put. It looks he used much purple. I had red image for shishi, so I didn’t think of purple. It looks powerful.

▲It’s done. It has both softness and power like a dancing shishi in shishimai. It’s well balanced like not too hard, not too soft. Exact a masterpiece. He imagined it like this.

There is an image of curly hair which is used as a pattern for shishi.

And in these lines, there is a scary and sharp impression

as you know when you think of a lion.

I also have an image of green and purple for shishi,

so I expressed that atmosphere as well.

I’m always surprised at his sense. Look forward to his next work!

>>Let’s watch funjin(fury) after shishi!