A traditional Japanese and American style piece of flash line work. Features a “Wild Cat” Tiger.

A very traditional styled acrylic painting of a Swan and flowers, finished with gold leaf.

I decided to get my hand on trying my own Ukiyo-e style prints, instead of using woodblocks I decided to screen print them. Here is a failure print, this is the 2x trying to expose, I already know what I messed up on (The negative was DRAWN, not printed – that is the main issue). But this is really to just check out what I’ve been working on.

Sketch of Kuniyoshi print, for test print

Screen, you can see some areas got over exposed (Missing right eye), not because I over exposed them, but because the ink in those areas were too transparent

Failed Print

I’ve written much about tattoos and popular motifs in Traditional Japanese tattooing, although I’ve never discussed the people responsible for these works of art. The beginning of Japanese tattooists developed from the practice of punitive tattooing, where bands (around the arms or legs) or characters were tattooed as punishment.

Punitive tattoos

This was called Irezumi or “The insertion of ink”, this term has negative connotations because of it’s use as punishment and on criminals. Although these Irezumi tattooist were inserting ink into the skin, they were not tattoo artists.

Irezumi

To understand how the first tattoo artists came to be we must understand how Ukiyo-e (Pictures of the Floating world, woodblock prints, see my post on “Rules of the Japanese tattoo” for more insight) prints were done. There were many craftsmen involved in the process of creating Ukiyo-e woodblock prints, but the main ones that were involved were the artist who did the drawing and woodblock carver who took the artist’s design and carved it into the woodblock. The artist would get much of the royalties from the prints sold, combined with the people of the Edo period looking for individuals to tattoo popular woodblock designs (see: Water Margin’s Popularity in Japanese tattooing) they turned to craftsmen already familiar with the designs and with manual skills. This allowed an opening for these woodblock carvers to become the Edo period’s first tattoo artists.

Traditional Japanese tattooing tools

Opposed to the word “Irezumi” to describe decoritive tattooing the Carvers called tattoos “Horimono” meaning “carved object”, and the prefix “Hori” which is adopted by Traditional Tattoo artists into their names means “To carve”.

Raijin is a demon who is found in Japan’s religion of Shintoism. When Buddhism arrived in Japan, Raijin and Fuji (The God of Wind) was adopted as well as many other Shinto icons into Buddhism. Raijin bangs on a massive drum to form thunder.

This is a painting of a Buddha (Thai Buddha influenced) surrounded by three Lotus flowers, to represent the Buddha’s purity. I intended the buddha to be a statue more so than a person.

The story “Water Margin” or sometimes referred to as ”The Outlaws of the Marsh”  or in Japan as the “Suikoden” (The latter which spun off to many TV series, films, and a line of video games.) is a story I’ve mentioned before on my blog. It is without a doubt one of my favorite epic novels, epic because it is usually seen in 4 volumes and consists of about ~2500 pages. It was written in China around the 16th century.

The story was about brotherhood, chivalry, honor, and virtue – despite it being a story of 108 bandits (That lead an army of bandits) these men (and women), although many of them not the stereotypical “good guy” as we see today in action movies or in westernized novels, they have killed, stole, and beaten but why they are seen as heroes is because they were driven to become bandits by corrupt officials that surrounded the Emperor (We see the same theme in another Chinese Epic, Three Kingdoms). Despite the Liangshan Marsh bandits’ (The Liang Mountain is where the bandit’s hideout stood) fights against the Imperial army, the bandits were loyal to the Emperor because they still believed that the Emperor was appointed by god and they wanted to be pardoned in order to serve the emperor (Loyalty and honor to the Emperor).

So why is the Chinese story of the Liangshan Marsh bandits so important to Japanese tattooing? When the story was brought over to Japan it was immensely popular and many were inspired by it’s characters who showed such virtues such as honor, loyalty, and brotherhood. The story starts off with one of the most well known Characters, Shi-Jin, or “Nine Dragons Shi-Jin”, called by this name for the nine dragons he had tattooed all over his body. His father was a wealthy farmer and when a military instructor (who was on the run from the officials after they had framed him) was seeking food and shelter at the estate where Shi-Jin lived. On the day of him leaving, the instructor saw Shi-Jin with his clothes tied down to his waist and body of dragon tattoos training with a staff, telling the young man that his technique was flawed and that the old instructor could beat him in a match. They fought, the instructor easily overtook Shi-Jin in strength and technique – this was the beginning of Shi-Jin’s story. Shi-Jin goes off and fights bandits who were harassing the villages around his – he gains fame throughout the land and becomes a popular character instantly.

Popularity with characters like Shi-Jin from Water Margin is what helped stir the tattoo craze in Japan, after reading the story many young men had the desire to cover their bodies in elaborate tattoos such as the ones Shi-Jin and Yang-Qin (The Prodigy, who was “porcelain” skin was tattooed).

Sagacious Lu, from Water Margin. Known as “The Flowery monk” for his Flower tattoos

Why were so many bandits covered with tattoos? When a punishment was issued and one was to be exiled the town/village where the criminal was exiled to was tattooed on them. In order to cover these “criminal tattoos” the criminals would then get larger and more elaborate japanese tattoo designs to cover them. Going from being inspired by the Bandits of the story and obtaining body suits just like the ones the Outlaws had, with the release of Kuniyoshi’s “Heroes of the Suikoden” a series of prints that illustrated much of “Water Margin”.

Kuniyoshi print of Yan-Qin “The Prodigy”

With Kuniyoshi’s series of the “Heroes of the Suikoden” came not only copying the tattoos the outlaws of the Marsh wore but also tattoo designs of these heroes themselves. Even today getting a Nine Dragons Shi-Jin or print from Kuniyoshi’s series tattooed is often seen. It is amazing how a story such as this can impact people, and how the virtues of those bandits are still honored today.

This is a painting of one of 9-Dragons Shi-Jin’s dragons. Okay let me explain if you’ve never read “Water Margin”, a classical Chinese Folktale from around the 16th century. In the story there is a character named Shi-Jin, also known as “Nine-Dragons Shi-Jin” because of the 9 dragons tattooed all over his body. I wanted to do 9 paintings of dragons in dedication of Shi-Jin and what those dragons within his body suit of tattoos would look like.

Taken from the traditional imagery of the Hanya Mask, I originally set out to create a Tibetan style skull, although this is the result. Paired with leaves.

I decided it was time for a new tattoo. My choice was the snake. Snakes in the west are usually deemed as evil and cunning. But in the East the snake represents rebirth and the cycle of life because of it’s shedding skin. The lotus was chosen because of it’s background in Buddhism, it’s representation of all elements.

Borrowing from Hinduism, in Buddhist symbolism the lotus again represents purity of the body, speech, and mind as if floating above the muddy waters of attachment and desire. It is also to be noted that most Buddhist, Chinese, Hindu, Japanese, amongst other Asian deities are often are depicted as seated on a lotus flower. According to legend, Gautama Buddha was born with the ability to walk and everywhere he stepped, lotus flowers bloomed.