You know, I have like 8 drafts written (either here or in my head) but I just haven’t gotten a chance to post, so tonight, I’m making a point of it!
I have been drawing so much lately. I’m averaging one new, full illustration in a day and a half! It’s really insane, I think. I am still amazing myself that I have t run out of inspiration (and I have like 20 more teacup cats to do, too!)
The other night, I decided to draw some simple Japanese graphics, and they’re taking over. I should be finishing my flash cards and getting onto worksheets, but alas, the inspiration fairy won’t let me.
My first one was a shimenawa, those ropes you see hanging at Japanese Shinto shrines and other sacred places. They usually have shide, or paper cut in interesting ways, hanging from them, and I absolutely adore them. Need to learn how to cut them, I’ll post when I figure it out.
That led to this design, that my husband really likes apparently.
The knobs are based on a photo of a door I took when we visited Kyoto years ago, and I’m so happy with how it turned out.
Then, of course, I started thinking of Kyoto. And Fushimi-Inari Taisha. Basically, whenever you see pictures of those huge tunnels of torii (the red gates at a Shinto shrine) it’s probably from there. They’re dense as a forest! And, the whole of the place is a cacophony of kitsune, the Japanese fox spirits. They are the guardians of Inari-Okami, the goddess of fertility, rice, sake, and all that goodness, so of course you see her messengers everywhere.
Which led to multiple drawings of them, this being the first I’ve finished.
The kitsune has a key in its mouth – at Inari shrines, you’ll see a pair of them flanking the actual shrine itself, each holding something like a key (pictured here), a baby fox kit, a jewel or a scroll case. These each symbolize what Inari is the goddess of. The styles of them vary so greatly, it’s hard to settle on one, so of course I’m drawing s few more.
The gold disk behind the kitsune and torii is representative of another symbol of Inari, who is kind of also linked to Amaterasu-Okami, a mirrored disk of burnished brass. I wanted the fox to seem to glow from the light of it.
With all of this artwork, my husband finally convinced me to start a shop on RedBubble, where you can have things printed with artwork.
Including stickers.
Have I mentioned I have a problem with stickers? Like, I own too many as it is, but… but… stickers!
So if you have any interest at all, please kindly take a look, leave a heart, or, if you’re so inclined, order a sticker or three! If you know someone who might like them, sharing it with them would be awesome, too.
I’ll write a journal on my trials and tribulations on finding and choosing where to do print on demand for artwork, but that’ll be added to the backlog of things to talk about, since this has gotten rather verbose as it is.
If you have any questions about religion in Japan, shrines, temples, gods, symbols, any of that, leave a comment! It’s my pet interest, and I love sharing what I know with others!