What a great Shodo-Experience!
Yesterday we had a Shodo Workshop at our hostel. It was an unique experience for me, because I've never done Shodo before.
Shodo is a very beautiful and artistic art of writing Japanese. It has a long tradition and shares its roots with the Chinese calligraphy, which goes back to the twenty-eighth century.
You draw the characters with a brush and Indian ink called sumi on the paper.
We have the luck to have really great Shodo-masters here, who show us Shodo-newbies how to do it in the right way. ^^
It's really not easy and I think, you have to train a lot of the right brush-technique, but it's so much fun and fascinating.
Here you can see my Shodo-masterpiece. ^^ Isn't it beautiful! It's my name Vanessa written in Shodo-style. The left one is mine and the right one is of course the master-masterpiece. ^^ The Kanjis means "feather", "root" and "golden thread".
First, you have to find the right Kanjis for your name. That's quite not easy, it depends on the sound of your name or the spelling in Katakana for example for an European name. Then you have to match an adorable meaning, too. ^^ I think, therefore you need much, much experience.
All the participants have so much fun and every Shodo-painting is an individual artwork, which will be the ultimate souvenir, too. Look at the pictures, how great everyone has done Shodo!
You can see more photos of this wonderful workshop on Photoalbum Shodo Workshop
Wow, I wish I can do more Shodo. Thank you for so much fun and this really new and fascinating experience and the chance, to dive a little bit deeper into Japans culture!
Maybe I try it at home once more.^^ Maybe you, too?
Sakura Hostel Asakusa
Address: 2-24-2 Asakusa Taito-ku, Tokyo
tel +81-3-3847-8111
fax +81-3-3847-8112
e-mail: info@sakura-hostel.co.jp
URL: http://www.sakura-hostel.co.jp/
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