Original Sumi-e Style Enso Painting - Haiku

In spite of some protests from me, a friend convinced me to accompany her to a SUMI-E art class a few years ago. I used every excuse I could think of, but mainly I felt intimidated and thought I would make a fool of myself seeing as I had not used a paint brush since high school! However, from the first day of class, I became hooked, and SUMI-E painting is now one of my favorite passtimes.

So what exactly is this art form that I have embraced? SUMI-E simply means black ink painting in Japanese. The art form developed in China and was adopted by the Japanese, so sometimes it is called Chinese brush painting, ink wash painting, or literati painting. Each stroke of the brush is very important, and it is said that we are capturing the Spirit Of the Brush with each stroke. In fact a group I belong to is called the Hisshin Society, which means Spirit Of the Brush Society.

The style is not meant to capture the exact form of the subject matter, but rather the essence of it. Although the brush strokes are very controlled, SUMI-E is an expressive and spontaneous art form. So, there are considered to be no mistakes in SUMI-E. Less is considered more in this style, so it is very minimalist.

Very important in SUMI-E painting is the way you load the brush with ink or colored pigment, and also the way you control the brush strokes. There are four main brush strokes to learn, and they are fondly called the Four Gentlemen.

In this painting, using traditional Chinese watercolor paints, I created the ensō, a circle created with one expressive brushstroke, depicting one moment in time. In Zen, the ensō symbolizes enlightenment and the universe. The circle can be open or closed, but once drawn must not be changed, as it shows the character of the artist at that point in time. A closed circle represents perfection.

The seven colors of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) were added to my brush and then the circle was drawn – capturing my character for that moment on paper!

At one of our Hisshin Society meetings, a speaker taught us how to combine our art form with haiku, so today I am sharing with you the first of many examples of my work, along with a haiku poem to go along with it. I hope you will enjoy them both!