Part 2 - Ukiyo-e Art with a Side of Katakana and Kanji

The second part of our lesson on Ukiyo-e is busy and very productive!  We start with a demo of watercolor painting techniques, then jump right into painting our drawings made the day before (See the 1st lesson here).   Here are the drawings as we start:

Our goal is to imitate the classic Ukiyo-e painting style by using bold colors and painting in "flat" washes, with little or no shading or modeling. The foreground is painted first, then the background.

While the backgrounds dry, we learn a little about the Japanese writing system, and practice writing our names in Katakana characters and the word Ukiyo-e in Kanji characters, which we add to our paintings.  The students find writing in Katakana and Kanji fun and enjoy this activity greatly.  The characters are a nice addition to the Ukiyo-e paintings.

The next step involves putting together a simple scroll on which to mount the paintings.  The scrolls are made using construction paper for the center and strips of mat board for the top and bottom supports. Construction paper triangles secure the corners of the paintings, and a piece of twine is added to the top for hanging.

Our Ukiyo-e paintings are done and the artists justifiably proud of their art.  What a wonderful job they did!

Melody

Jillian

Gretchen

I'm so glad you visited and shared in our Ukiyo-e experience.  Please leave a comment and let these students know what you thought of their work. 

Thanks,  Betsy