Japanese Zodiac Calligraphy for the Year of the Horse

Inspired by Blair’s first calligraphy teacher Wakabayashi Shujō, at our December classes at Woodside Library we worked with an 干支 eto (Japanese zodiac) shodō calligraphy theme brushing uma 午 horse, to prepare for celebrating the new year ✨Even into his late eighties Wakabayashi Shujō worked on many such works, mostly giving them as gifts (see picture using gold sumi ink).

The groups were lively and participants enjoyed choosing from the various styles of uma to write their own eto work. They also learned about other phrases they can write on this type of piece, such as fukuju 福寿 long life and happiness, and writing their name in Japanese in harmony with the other characters.

After practicing kaisho standard script strokes, we brushed the kanji character for horse in kaisho, then cursive styles, followed by the grass style for fukuju. Blair gave demonstrations for each style and helped people with their strokes.

We then practiced on hanshi paper for the year of the horse work on small mame shikishi calligraphy board, with some participants choosing cursive styles of the character and phrases, and others opting for more ancient 甲骨文 kokōtsubun shell and bone styles.

Here is a mysterious horse themed haiku which we shared with participants after the group.

samayoeru uma
kyōshū to narite
kienu

wandering horse, 
turning into a longing 
for home, vanishes

Tomizawa Kakio

Thanks for joining and for all your support and enthusiasm this year. We look forward to brushing with you again in the new year. Otsukaresama deshita!