We’ve FALLEN in LOVE with ETEGAMI Watercolor and you ABSOLUTELY will TOO!

hi everyone Dian here welcome to my channel my studio and uh I'm glad that you've joined me today hope everybody is well as usual um today I'm going to be talking about something that I know absolutely nothing about as usual um I don't know anything about this other than what I have just read and what has been coming naturally to me for some time this is interesting thing because today I have come across just by chance um when I was looking at a review of um the art Nuvo gansai tambi paints I was looking at a review that was done about a year ago by a lady on YouTube and um I disagreed with her what she says um and I thought I don't understand this really because she was talking about something called eami um I hadn't ever heard of that really um but I thought I'd do a bit of research so I went to um another woman called um Debbie whose blog is called dosanko Debbie it's funny really because I use um Japanese brushes all the time um my um draww brushes that I get direct from Mr Miami in Japan and but I know very little about Japan except recently it seems as if um there's been a lot of interest and it's not actually all that recent as it turns out it's been happening for quite a long time I just hadn't noticed so anyway so I read up on this and I wanted to share it with you because a little while ago um kuraki sent me these paints they don't send me very much they haven't actually supplied me with any of my art Novo or my big sets or anything like that but they did send me the as well as the um the graphite and the granulating paints which we've used and a lot of people were very interested in anyway so they sent me these and they call them Sumi colors and what they are is they're basically blocks in the same style as the other um kuraki Paints in these nice plastic pans here which are very large because you might if you're painting in the Japanese style you might want to use a big brush I suppose so you can moist these and have a lot of ink very loose and free and available to you anyway but I didn't know really what to do with them and I didn't know whether anyone would be very interested in them because they're something completely different is watercolor and you use a brush to use them but it's not what you would call colorful is it I mean although these are called red yellow green blue violet and brown similar to the um graphite colors and the granulating colors you can't really tell any difference when you just look at them like that so you just have to take their word for it um anyway so I put them aside and um wondered amongst myself whether maybe one day something would come up and I would have a chance to use them so um so they're sitting there and today the chance arose last night um just before we went home to bed tamin brought in these mushrooms from the garden I had said to her the other day um just before I painted the mus mushrooms that you will have seen recently on the channel I said to her have we got any mushrooms in the field because um it's coming up to that time of here now where mushrooms are abundant and she said no actually I don't think we have and there weren't she went and had a look and there weren't any but yesterday suddenly all of these wonderful things had sprung up overnight and she said I thought I would um pick them so that you could paint them or just look at them uh before the dogs at them or the Sheep trample them so she brought them in and aren't they beautiful they're really lovely this is a beautiful big one it's funny how um some of them have got these light brown gills and some of them have got darker brown gills I don't know if they're a different type um or whether they are just at different stages of maturity I'm not an expert on mushrooms not an expert on anything really I know a lot of things but I don't know much about anything I know a lot of unrelated and unimportant things but I'm not a an expert in anything really I don't think anyway so those are the mushrooms just a disclaimer if I tell you something that's not correct don't blame me because I've only found it online um so I wanted to therefore I thought that would be a good subject for my first foray into um eami now eami is apparently um Japanese for postcard art and this uh art was started in um 1873 when the Japanese post office decided to make it inexpensive to send letters at New Year so people suddenly started to send postcards so people suddenly started to create postcards which they sent to one another and it became a very popular thing at New Year and um then so that went on and of course they were mostly traditional things and you know the kind of thing with the um Mount Fuji or the cherry blossom or the um the um things like the tiger and the horse and all of those symbols of astr astrology that um that they use for their years um so they were like that and then in 1960 a chap called kunio koik decided to break free from the restrictions of those uh days and he said I'm going to invent something slightly different and he invented eami which is where you take a piece of um relatively lightly sized or unsized card postcard size unsized when I say unsized I mean untreated so that sizing when you apply it to the paper rather than the size of the paper the dimensions sizing is when you put a substance based on gelatin usually but there are other types on the paper in order to stop it from bleeding badly and I don't mean bleeding as in blood I mean bleeding as in blending bleeding as in paint moving in the surface of the paper now most watercolor paper that we have in the west is heavily sized and the bleeding is controlled in Japan and presumably China they use a lot of unsized paper that is not the size of the dimensions the size of the gelatin and that means that the paint will bleed or the ink will bleed a lot more so you have to be much more direct and careful about how you use your ink or paint um but I'm going to try this out today on this is a piece of tival cellulose paper which is sized in the normal way because I'm not brave enough and I think I will and I actually can't lay my hands on some unsized paper at the moment but I know I've got some somewhere so this for my first trial I'm going to use paper I'm familiar with this is actually my first trial um and that's on the same kind of paper um but I'm haven't I'm didn't film that so I'm going to have to do it again to show you um so I'm sure you understand why I'm using sized paper for this and knowing full well that um you're not supposed to you're supposed to use unsized paper but not necessarily extremely unsized maybe slightly unsized or very unsized depending on what effect you want so that's all open to um discussion you see so there we are and now in order to do igami you need a few things you need a brush and I happen to have because somebody gave this to me a long time ago um a set of three Japanese or Chinese calligraphy brushes and I think these would be absolutely perfect for this I've got three sizes this is the size that I think I will use and they came in a nice little case and I'm pretty sure that you could buy this online if you were to look for it and I will look for something like that and if I can find it I'll put a link then we've got our sui e paints and I have got um three I've picked out three colors because I'm going to paint the mushrooms of from the art Novo set three colors of beige um with which I'm going to make an attempt to come close to those colors there so you're supposed to select a couple of colors like that you're supposed to have a brush um the paper the ink and whatever El so I got written down line drawing brush that will be this one coloring brush you can use any brush um the ink the paint the paper that's it okay so another thing that's important about this and you'll find actually that as I did um most of the principles of eami painting are the principles that I've been hammering on about since we started the channel they are actually the principles which um um what's the word motivate my kind of art because I'm not very keen on Preparatory sketches and I like to paint direct and I do deal with a lot of running and bleeding and you know um movement of water and paint on the paper and I always say follow the paint and let the water do the work and things like that and those are all principles of eami as well and then something else that is one of the main principles of eami is that you should be painting things that you can see and actually that is what my principle for sketch tber this month is I'm asking people to paint or draw sketch something each day that they actually have in front of them you know whether it's your coffee cup or a mushroom paint from life because painting from photos we are all trying to combat this AI Invasion which is going to destroy the world if we don't resist um so one of the things that you can do is actually open your eyes and look at the things that are really in front of you and not things that are in a book or no not books are okay not photographs online not pictures online because we can't trust them anymore um that's just my opinion don't beat me up about it it's my opinion it's uh right or wrong I don't know but I do feel that we are under some kind of attack by AI um okay so in front of me I have these mushrooms and the principles behind eami is that you keep it simple and first of all what you do is you do the drawing in ink and you do that using the traditional vertical approach where you hold the brush per perpendicular that is to say if the paper is like that the brush should be like that not like that or like that but literally coming straight down on to the paper so that's the idea so we have no Preparatory drawing we're going to make sure we leave a lot of space around the picture that we're doing because we need to do some writing because that's the other thing about eami there should be a message on there and on this one I wrote the message no not Mushroom in here uh just trying to be mildly amusing you know can't help it and uh they say um the the chap who invented this idea kunio K I don't know if they're still alive or whether he has gone to a better place but anyway the idea was that the words should be written in the most simple way that you could possibly do it not fancy calligraphy not tidy just simple block letters and um that you should then also put your little Chop on the bottom there if you haven't got one of these machines like this um do carve something into the end of an eraser and use that instead so there we are okay I think I've been talking enough now you're probably bored to death and if you're still there I'm going to make my brush wet um I'm going to pick up um some paint I'm going to start with this one here and I'm very unfamiliar with this paint so I'm not at all sure how this is going to work this is completely um what's the word uh well spontaneous I'm going to have to sit down otherwise I can't see my mushrooms um so I'm going to sit down and I'm holding the brush vertical perpendicular to the paper and I think you're supposed to hold your elbow up in the air as well so that your wrist is free to move so we'll see how that works uh okay so I think I'll start at at the bottom of the mushroom and we'll go up and another thing that it says in this article that I read about this technique is that uh even if you actually want to tear your effort up when you've done it um you shouldn't because every um eami painting should be sent to a friend or someone I don't know if it actually has to be a friend friend or whether it could be you know um an acquaintance but anyway you shouldn't throw them away you should give them away so I'm I'm try trying to draw a mushroom here and then I'm going to indicate some of the gills using the tip of the brush so that's one mushroom and and then I'm going to do another one here [Music] um let's have this one oops lift my elbow up it definitely reduces the amount of control that you have which is fine might want to make that a bit darker and then we could put one of these little tiny ones here put another one over here lift up your elbow there we are so that's it's fun and the idea it says here is that your painting should be spontaneous honest and personal and um that uh it should the idea is that you are hoping that this when you send it to your friend or your enemy that they are going to be um with any luck stimulated and inspired or amused or comforted so that's what you're aiming for so that's why I wrote and I'm going to write it again not muchroom not Mushroom in here there we are mushroom in here and um so the next thing is to dry it and then color it in so I'll just wash off my brush and then you're supposed to use I think I could probably use the same brush you're supposed to use um uh gai tambi paints which are apparently I didn't know this but apparently they are particularly suitable for working on unsized paper that that that concept has just suddenly jumped out at me over the the last couple of days I've seen it in a couple of places um I don't have a problem with this paint the gansai tambi paint on regular watercolor paper I've not had a problem at all in fact if anything I think it works brilliantly and I think a lot of other people would agree with me so um anyway that's the reason why it's thicker because um I think the idea is that because it's thicker it doesn't move as much maybe it's a bit more controllable on the UN sized paper so I'm just going to put the hair dryer on this I don't think it would really matter if there was a little bit of running um and I think I could probably use the same brush actually I don't see any reason why not and I'm going to paint the underside in the darkest of these colors and we'll see how that looks and the top side in a slightly lighter color and these ones are quite pale so we'll color those in down here and I think actually it looks quite nice if you get a bit of running like that and then the stem like that I feel as if that ought to be a little bit darker so I'm just going to take a bit of that and try to oh my goodness it's very very strong the the ink is unbelievably unbelievably strong so I can darken this a bit okay and as it says you know it should be very spontaneous and not labored in any way and the idea is to just drop the paint into the area that you've drawn and let it do its own thing and then you can um take your little red ink pad which is very sticky and your chalk which that's supposed to say my name on it I don't know if it does or not I ordered that on Etsy um and press down cuz otherwise it doesn't print very well so put that there it's probably UPS down I have a feeling it might be but I I don't mind because I can't read Chinese or Japanese or any other e um so that's that and you know you could put a few spatters on there if you wanted to couldn't you you could you could definitely I'm going to just indicate a little bit of Shadow underneath and um I'm going to write uh I'm going to put not Mushroom in here couple of lines there and so that's that and yeah I'm not going to play with it anymore I think that will do so there we are ET aami not about looking good it's the whole principle is that you're not doing this to show off you're doing it to help the receiving person the person who catches your card when you send it to them and to make them smile so if you can think of something mildly funny to say that's the idea I don't know whether that's funny or not but anyway it's just what came into my head um so there we are it's interesting isn't it I think I would honestly suggest it would be great fun to give that a try don't worry about not having any unsized paper it doesn't matter if you just use ordinary paper I'm sure um nobody is going to knock on your door and uh send around the sizing police um so yeah I think that's actually really fun so I'm going to do another one I'm going to do another one I'm going to do um the other thing I've got in front of me is flowers so I've got this flower just a sec I think this is a it's an osteos spum is what it's called so it looks bit like a gerbera or whatever it's just a fancy Daisy really now let's see how that works um it's going to be a little bit more difficult because um there's a lot more detail but I'll just do the and if you if you don't feel able to hold your arm up I don't think you need to worry about that precluding you from doing this kind of painting cuz I I don't I'm not very um what's the word strong in the elbow front so it's not I don't I I I I think I'll put my elbow down in other words because when you get old you can't do these kinds of things so easily can you so I'm going to uh put another stem up here and then I'm going to put another one here I am trying to to do it in an uncontrolled fashion it reminds me of that book drawing on the right side of the brain I think I think that's the one where she tells you to paint using your other hand your non dominant anyway um yeah don't you think this is fun eami eami with a t I'll put as many links as I can think of in the description below so you can look it up and to me the the thing that is fascinating about this is that it embodies all of the principles that that I believe in it's and I didn't even know existed I didn't even know there was such a thing as eami until this morning but it turns out that um that is my my way of painting really I think you could say it's funny my very first job after I left school well no my second job after I left school um was working in a Japanese Bank in London the DI Ichi Kango Bank um who later bought the Midland Bank which was my first job when I left school I worked for the Midland bank and then I went to work for the DI Chango Bank um so I have quite fond memories of Japanese people um from then although I didn't stay there very long because I got married right so I'm going to write something on here and this as I said is an osteos spum so what shall I write um [Music] Little Flower big heart there we are and we'll need our little chop let's see if I can get it the right way out this time uh I think it goes that way do they call it chop because when you there we are Dian Anton I think that's what that says okay I should have actually colored them in first shouldn't I just a second we'll do that and then I'll let you go and I hope you're going to be interested to explore igami a little bit uh these colors aren't really what I would call Bright so we'll go to our big set and I think what we need is Ros matter deep this one here and we won't use much I'm going to take a smaller brush for this and I'll just [Music] um yeah just put some purple into some of those leaves there and question is then I always wonder whether or not I should um use green for the leaves let's just use a tiny bit like that okay I'm going to leave you there little osteos spum and uh yeah I hope you enjoyed that um I'm sure some of you will have heard of igami well I'm sure quite a few of you will and there used to be a lady that was one of our quite active followers who um was trying hard to master um the art of eami and Sumo e painting but I haven't heard from her for a very long time and I'm rather worried that maybe um something's happen to her we have lost a couple of people two at least I know over the last few years well over the last few months actually um yeah lady from England and a lady from America have both passed on and uh it's very hard actually we miss them anyway um rip as they say so there we are we have our mushrooms and our flow and an experience for the day so have fun I'll see you soon don't forget to visit our website don't forget to join patreon or to subscribe to YouTube and all the other things um and check in the description below for information about anything that you've seen me using here that you might be interested in and I'll see you again soon so I'll say bye-bye for now everybody bye-bye for