Pigma Brush Green

The kimono is a traditional Japanese garment that is still often seen in modern Japan. The garment is shaped like a T with square sleeves and a rectangular body and features a wrapped front. The word kimono is made up of the words ki from the verb ‘to wear’ and mono from the noun ‘thing’, so it literally translates to ‘thing to wear’. Kimonos come in various styles based on occasion, season, gender, age and more! Materials and patterns vary greatly as well. In this step-by-step plan, we will show you how to create your own kimono-inspired drawing with a focus on different patterns. Relax and lose the stress of everyday life by drawing these therapeutic patterns and create a lovely kimono! You can use this technique to add patterns to your illustrations or on its own. Have fun!

A tea room or chashitsu (茶室) is a traditional Japanese space designed to be used for tea ceremonies. The term can be used for free-standing tea houses, but also for individual rooms intended for tea ceremonies. Since they are significant elements of Japanese culture and have been for ages, tea rooms are a popular subject for traditional drawings and prints. In this step-by-step plan we will show you how to recreate your own Japanese-inspired tea room! Since the drawings from the Japanese antiquity are often perfectly straight, we decided to imitate these straight lines by cutting them. Let's begin!

What is boro & sashiko? Boro & sashiko are a combination of traditional Japanese styles of patchworking. Boro (ぼろ) refers to different pieces of textile that have been stitched or re-woven together to create new items of clothing. The term comes from the Japanese word “boroboro”, meaning something tattered or ripped. Sashiko (刺し子), literally meaning “little stabs”, is a type of traditional Japanese embroidery or stitching used as both a functional and decorative way to reinforce clothing. Although these techniques may be centuries old, they are making a comeback with the current uprise in vintage, second-hand and upcycled fashion. Modern-day boro & sashiko items are comprised of bright, colourful patches and contrasting stitching to create new, fashionable clothing. This step-by-step plan is heavily inspired by the combination of these two Japanese patchwork techniques. Though the term refers to sewing textile together, why not try something like this with old drawings? By using old drawings in a patchwork technique, all the different parts become one new artwork. To add the sashiko, or stitching part of boro & sashiko, and to make your work more cohesive, you can “embroider” your patchwork of drawings using Gelly Roll or other pens. This is an incredibly fun and relaxing thing to do, so let’s get into it!

When you think of Japanese rural life, one of the first things that comes to mind might be the abundance of bugs scurrying around. Japan is home to many bugs you can only find there, and while they might not be too present in big cities such as Tokyo or Kyoto, once you visit more rural areas, you’ll be sure to notice them! Japanese children often grow up catching beetles and other bugs to study and collect them. Some children make them fight each other to see who has the strongest insects. You can even find bugs in stores as pets. This activity is called mushitori, which translates to bug catching. Did you know that Pokémon, an immensely popular Japanese series of comics, TV series, games and more, was based on bug catching? The creator of the Pokémon series loved catching bugs as a kid! We prefer drawing bugs instead of catching them, though. In this step-by-step plan, we show you how you can draw your own Japanese rhinoceros beetle (also known as the Japanese horned beetle or kabutomushi (カブトムシ)). Let’s get started drawing this impressive bug!

To celebrate our Japanese brand Sakura’s 100th anniversary in 2021, we would like to show you how to paint a traditional Daisugi tree. Daisugi is a Japanese forestry technique that originated in Kyoto around the 14th century. Shoots from a type of cedar tree are carefully pruned so that multiple branches grow straight up from the base of the tree. This ancient tradition allows beautiful, straight logs to be harvested from the tree without having to cut it down at the base, which makes it a very sustainable forestry technique. The harvested logs are often used to build traditional tea houses. The Daisugi technique gives forests a mysterious, outer-worldly look that we want to help you portray in this step-by-step plan. The finished artwork’s colours and style are inspired by Japanese woodblock prints called ukiyo-e. These prints are characterised by their large, bold-coloured areas and a notable absence of shading and perspective. The pigments used in these prints were often blue, brown and orange, but we decided to also add green for the forestry.