Self-introduction
自己紹介 (Jiko shōkai – Self introduction) time, like we say in Japanese.
My name is AkaiHibana (RedSparkle), Akai for short, a french man living in Japan from 2016. I came to Japan through my student path and I decided to stay in this wonderful country.
Artist path
About my artist path, it started when I came to Japan. At first, I drew manga character from my favorite manga such as Berserk or Kingdom. I learned how to draw by myself, I watched a lot of Youtube video about “How to draw”, about human faces, expressions, etc. I was really into this style at that time, yet, something happened, a revelation or as I say, a sparkle (火花).
Almost 1 year ago, I visited an exhibition about Hokusai (北斎) Ukiyo-e (浮世絵) art style, there was a lot of people and it was very crowded, yet, I had the opportunity to enter into the exhibition.
While I looked at Hokusai pieces of art, it impressed me, the form, the color and the style. Especially, with “The Great Wave off Kanagawa“.
The reason why I love this Ukiyo-e is because you can feel the wave strength, the overwhelming ocean and fury.
As I was walking through this exhibition, I was more and more excited to see more of it. My eyes were devouring each one of them, one after another.
The floral path
The paroxysm of my excitement was when I saw the “Chrysanthemums and Bee“. The moment my eyes saw this Ukiyo-e, I knew that I wanted to draw like this. I though to myself that I have found my path, or at least the beginning of it. It enlightened me, the color, the shape and the zen attitude coming from it.
From this point in time, I decided to learn how to draw Ukiyo-e style art.
After leaving the exhibition, I came back home, took my sketch book and I started to draw flowers from famous Ukiyo-e artist which I found on internet.
Then, I started to train with this new style, I tried to learn this art style by imitating the grand master of Ukiyo-e, and I am still trying to.
With time and training, my art style started to take his own form and I used less and less references from famous artist, instead I used more and more photo of flowers in nature as a reference.
Yet, I haven’t created a full 100% original art piece, I think this time will soon come. When my skill level and my confidence in myself as an artist will reach a certain threshold.
Objective
My objective is to master the art of drawing Ukiyo-e bird and flower art (花鳥画 – Kacho-ga).
For website touring visitor
When you have finished reading this introduction about myself, please, take a look at my portfolio.
Photographer credit: takanahero
