Sumi-e and Suminagashi

Last year I tried Sumi-e (Japanese ink painting) with my 6th grade students and was pretty frustrated with the results. It was challenging for the students and they had an especially hard time creating value. I tried a different approach with my 5th grade students for our Cultural Heritage Week East Asian focus this fall and I'm much happier with how everything went!

The solution was to actually incorporate a second Sumi technique- Suminagashi. Suminagashi is a Japanese paper marbling technique that involves suspending ink on top of water and printing on paper.

 After watching this video tutorial from Blick, it seemed very doable.

Source: youtube.com via Katie on Pinterest

Source: youtube.com via Katie on Pinterest

I had a small tub of water for each table and poured some Sumi ink in a cup. The students very carefully applied a couple drops of ink to the surface of the water, used the end of their brush to create gentle ripples in the water which creates cool organic patterns in the ink, then dropped their paper on top of the water and lifted to reveal their marbled paper. I have 6 student tables at this school and with one student printing at a time, it only took about 10 minutes. The students were very supportive of each other as they took turns and were just as excited to see each piece of paper. The students lightly blotted their papers on a piece of paper towel and left them there to dry while I demonstrated how to hold a paintbrush for Sumi-e. After my demo, the students had time to start painting landscapes on top of their papers. Some were able to finish this project totally in one 40-minute class period but most needed some time in their next class.

 

The marbling is a bit hard to see on some of my photos. That's what I get for leaving my camera and having to use my cellphone. :)

When the paintings were dry, I flattened them under some heavy books then the students mounted on red or black construction paper for display.

Japanese Family Crests

Japanese Family Crests are similar in concept to a Western Coat of Arms. They were the inspiration for my 6th grade East Asian lesson for Cultural Heritage Week. If my internet sources are correct, Mon means "crest" and Ka-Mon means "family crest". 

I introduced the lesson with a PowerPoint, we discussed, and then I gave a quick demo. We focused on crests starting with a circle since many examples we saw have radial designs. When I was researching, I drew parallels between design elements in the crests and Yin-Yang. I found that Yin-Yang started in China but was used in Japan. That seems to be a trend in Japanese Art- adapting things that began in China. I don't know if any experts would mention Yin-Yang and Mon, but it made me feel like an Art Historian to see a possible connection and research it. :)

Japanese Crests Ka-Mon

The students found the center of their paper by using their paper to connect diagonal corners (the center of the resulting "X" is the center of the paper) and used that dot as the center point for drawing a circle with a compass. I always suggest that the students hold the compass steady and swivel the paper. That seems to work better for most of us than trying to rotate the compass without adjusting the size. After the circle was created, the students had tons of freedom as far as how to create their crests. I just ask them to try to achieve a balance of positive and negative space (we talked about how patterns are a good way to do this.) If the students didn't know where to start, I suggested they think of something that represents them or their family and simply that into a symbol or look through the examples for inspiration. Example: One student is really into Boy Scouts so he used a canoe paddle as the central image in his design. I found a great PDF with a lot of examples* that was easy to print off enough copies for each table. The PDF was a great resource for the students. After our quick reminder discussion about inspiration vs. copying prior to starting, everyone did a great job. This website also has a lot of images and this one has history and compares Japanese Crests to Coat of Arms.

*It's a small world! One of my students was really excited that he found his family crest in the PDF. He said his mother is half Japanese. I've seen a wide range of estimates about the number of Family Crests that exist and 10,000 seems to be middle of the road. What are the chances that I just happened to print off a PDF with a very small sample of Japanese crests and one of my students in Kansas found HIS family's crest? Pretty cool!

The first day was reserved just for drawing with pencil. Most students needed the majority of the second day to finish planning. I asked them to lightly mark with pencil which areas would be filled in black and to let me check it before they started with marker. I told them it's always good to have another set of eyes check to see if your patterns make sense. After getting their plans checked, the students set to work filling in the designated areas with black permanent marker.

Kindergarten Cherry Tree Paintings

For Cultural Heritage Week, my Kinders learned about the meaning of cherry trees/blossoms in Chinese and Japanese cultures. We also used aesthetic scanning to discuss Women and Blossoming Trees by X Torii Kiyonaga, 1786. from the Art Institute of Chicago's website. We see the women having a little get together under the cherry trees. The students were also challenged to look for shapes and patterns. (When I was trying to come up with something from Art History that depicted cherry blossoms, I found this resource from the KU Center for East Asian Studies- if you are in the area, they have also have awesome "trunks" you can check out with objects from China, Japan, and Korea.)

X Torii Kiyonaga Japanese, 1752-1815 Women and Blossoming Trees (Naka no machi no sakura), c. 1786

Source: artic.edu via Katie on Pinterest

After the first day discussion, the students used lines of dark brown paint to form a cherry branch on light blue construction paper.

In the second class period, each table got a tray of magenta and white paint so the students could create different tints while painting the blossoms on their cherry trees. I thought about having the students add a self portrait "under" their trees but they actually filled the space for once so there wasn't room!