Nihonga is a painting technique from 16-17th century that uses pulverized minerals, hide glue, and hemp paper. The finished paintings are refractive and prismatic.

PREPARE THE CANVAS / 水張り
The main tool for this step is water.
Water cleans the wooden panel (and brings out the smell of the wood).
Water stretches the #雲肌麻紙 “kumohada mashi” (very durable paper made from hemp and mulberry) to cling better onto the panel. (TIP: Buy the paper that’s already primed “ドーサ引き”)
Water makes the #水張り tape sticky.
Water hydrates the artist.

PRIME THE PAPER / ドーサ塗り
Coat the paper with a thin layer of #胡粉 Gofun (white oyster shell pigment) and let it dry.

SKETCH IN COLOR / 写生
Best to sketch in real life. Capture what you see as purely as possible, from various angles. 実物をありのままに、空気感などもメモして、色も細かく観察する。
The more detail you put here, the easier it will be to paint later (because your mind will wonder when you’re painting the same thing for many months in slow art). The first impression — what your eye caught as the ‘essence’ of the subject matter — is almost always better than what we ‘come up with brain’ by adding extra stuff.

DESIGN THE LAYOUT / 草稿・小下絵
Sketch a handful of layout options in a sketchbook size — 小下図 (エスキース) “small rough sketch” — to study composition and balance.
Think about how to use the whitespace (#余白) to tell a story. (Artists like Shinsen Tokuoka #徳岡神泉 from 1900’s explored the meaning of whitespace vs. background.) What time of the day? Atmosphere? What do you want the viewer to feel? These questions will guide the color & texture choices.

CREATE THE FINAL LAYOUT / 大下絵
Draw the final layout in the actual canvas size - 大下絵 (which translates to “large rough sketch” but it is NOT rough at all!). You want to include as many details as possible: lines, subtle colors, lighting, mood, textures, angles, etc.

TRACE THE LINE DRAWING / トレース
Trace ONLY the line drawing (without shadows) on a tracing paper.
Then, transfer the line drawing onto the canvas by using #念紙 carbon paper. I made carbon paper with 水兵朱土 dirt pigment, sugar, water, and #薄美濃紙 (usu-mino paper). My teacher says it will last my lifetime, and I love its sepia brown color.

OUTLINE THE LINE DRAWING / 骨描き
Go over the lovely sepia brown lines with black ink. It’s traditional to use #墨 sumi ink and a brush. But my teacher (and other master painters) use pencil to achieve sharper lines, which I like. Pencil lines will not wash off under the layers of mineral pigments.

UNDERLAY / 下塗り
- 墨隈: Use the light black sumi ink to paint the areas with shadows and deep colors (墨で「あたり」をつける).
- 具墨: Mix a tiny bit of sumi black ink to Gofun white (oyster shell pigment) and paint underlay. This works well for painting buildings or giving a three-dimentional effect.
- #水干絵具 Suihi watercolor paint: If you want the painting to be soft and bright, you can skip on the sumi black ink and use colors instead. Since the pigments are like sand, every layer of color will be subtly visible in the finished painting. Some artists apply green base color in order to paint a red object, to utilize complementary colors and add more vibrancy. Get creative with color theory!

ADD COLORS / 彩色
First you need to create the paint:
- Melt #膠 nikawa (glue made from animal hide & bone, sold as a stick or gelatin in a bottle) in a double boiler. Dilute x2.5 with water (but make it thicker in summertime).
- Mix #岩絵具 mineral pigment and hide glue. Make sure that all the particles of mineral pigments are coated with glue (otherwise they won’t stick to paper). The consistency should be like syrup… if there’s too much glue, the pigment will look too shiny and it might crack later. Do this for each color in a separate dish.
- Add water to the consistency of paint that you want.

Now, you’re finally ready to start painting!
Slowly layer the colors. Wait for each layer to dry completely if you don’t want the pigments to move. Or you could add water and try the “wet on wet” painting technique. There are million ways to paint with mineral pigments. Many artists experiment to achieve the effects that they are looking for. Same colors can look different by changing: the order that you layer them, the particle size of the pigments (the higher the number the finer the pigments, which will sink to the bottom of the layer), the ratio of pigment : hide glue, the amount of water on the brush, etc. Some people heat up the pigments over fire or add acid to the metal leaf to find new colors.

STRUGGLE, AND SEEK FEEDBACK
Because the mineral pigment painting is a long process, you may hit a mental wall after many months. It’s good to struggle and wrestle with it. And it’s also good to take a break and come back later with fresh eyes. I find it helpful to seek feedback from classmates to gain new perspectives.

KNOW WHEN TO STOP
You can keep adding and revising forever. But at some point, your gut will tell you to stop. That’s it, this is the image that you set out to create. Stop there, before your brain tells you to add extra/excessive details to ruin the main message.

SIGN IT AND STAMP YOUR SEAL
Most artists have a name seal. I had my name curved on a stone stick in ancient Chinese characters (which felt more artsy since it’s not how I usually spell my name). You stamp it with a super thick “red mud” #朱泥 which is not a stamp pad but more like a chunk of mud in a dish. This feels like a graduation for my child, we’re done!

“The more humble you are towards the object, the better your painting will be. It’s prideful to ‘make them look right’ by relying on yourself. Instead, let their beauty speak and teach you.” - My teacher

「画は人なり」(Artwork is the personhood) by Taikan Yokoyama #横山大観
Art reveals what is inside the person, the state of our heart, our character and personhood.

Slow art cultivates patience, self-awareness, mental stability in the unknown, new eyes, surrender, tenacity to hold onto hope, and “soul muscle” of a good human.

Fast is NOT better. Observe longer, see it from various angles, burn in your memory what it naturally is like. Loosen the grip on your agenda. Paint with care, and be taught in the process.

Nihonga materials are mostly all-natural; therefore you can NOT control them. The amount of hide glue depends on the air humidity and temperature. The colors of mineral pigments depend on the rock/shells/etc. White oyster shell pigment is translucent while you’re painting, but becomes cloudy when it dries. It’s hard to predict its opacity from the (pigment : glue : water) ratio of the paint unless you’re a super master artist.
So we learn to dance… through the stages of frustration, trials and error, therapeutic peace, delight, and flow.

Tedious steps of traditional slow art from the 16th century can make you question the sense of time. Why am I manually tracing the same lines for the 4th time in this digital age? But it does GOOD for my soul. In the rush and hustle to get things done, we can become weary, critical, and joy-less. It’s GOOD to slow down. A change of pace in one area can increase efficiency & capacity in other areas. It’s the process that builds up our characters.

Kneading the pigments and mixing with hide glue takes time. It can feel like an extra work, but it’s actually a therapeutic ritual that guides you into the zone and quiets our hearts before the performance/battle.

As you paint MANY thin layers of mineral pigments, you get to see new colors emerge from underneath. It is similar to listening to people’s stories that reveal the depth of their characters. It’s the colors that can only be achieved by humble efforts over time.

“Rely on your initial sketch more than photos, which tend to be darker than how you first saw the flower/landscape/etc. When you try to copy the photograph perfectly, you get caught up in unnecessary details that your eyes had unconsciously removed while sketching. And you lose focus on the main message of your painting. Perfectionism kills the heart, huh?” - My teacher

Art is a safe space to practice listening to our gut, which doesn’t get deceived by lies as the minds do.

Sketching in real life allows us to to study the subject better — the edges on the leaves, the liveliness of the bursting buds, the changing colors of the withering stems — and then pinpoint what the final painting needs to express. Maybe it’s similar to writing? Distilling your thoughts until you find the right words, instead of regurgitating what other people said.

“There are hundreds of ways to paint the same scenery. It is the artist’s individual journey. Even for seemingly similar paintings, I try different ways every time. It’s tedious, but that’s where the fun is! そこが楽しいんですよ！” — My teacher

None of these can be done digitally or virtually. Being present, sharing with classmates, using our hands, experimenting, discovering, being fearless of failure because we learn from trying!

Cultivating the artistic sensibility is as important as mastering the techniques. In order to paint, we must go explore museums, read books, sketch in real life, study other artists, walk around the neighborhoods, experiment with pigments, share with classmates, observe the seasons, study the wind, the sunlight, the rain…

Painting is a gift. How else can we learn to be still, look closely at something, tap into its endless beauty, and peer into its soul? Life is more glorious when you’re constantly in awe.

Painting is also similar to justice work: The beginning is ugly.The middle is uncertain. Distractions can get us lost. Rhythm is required (work + sabbath). Must push towards the unseen future. As Makoto Fujimura says: “Beauty (creating) and mercy (for the ‘least of these’)... are two ‘upside down’ paths to imagining the Kingdom of God, and it is as we travel along these avenues of imagination that we are transfigured into what God has intended for us.”

It is much more satisfying to “go ALL IN” — struggle, fail, learn, and achieve — than to compromise for a subject that ‘’may look nice” and escape to take the shortcut.

“Don’t fear mistakes. All trials & errors are worthy labor. Failures made with an intention to create something better will lead you to a new discovery. But, failures made out of laziness will leave you in regret.” — My teacher

“… ‘There is no art,’ he [Makoto Fujimura] writes, ‘if we are unwilling to wait for paint to dry’; and the same is true in the life of the Spirit. If we believe that what we do in the present in the power and Spirit of Jesus’s resurrection really is part of God‘s glorious, abundant future, that constitutes a call to learn the discipline and virtue of patience.”
— N.T.Wright

I personally find Nihonga practice to be beyond visual, because it taps into the cognitive, somatic, & unconscious understanding of the world. Creating slow art requires us to “spend all our heart, soul, mind & strength” just like how we’re called to love God. It’s a wonderful avenue to seek and find the Creator God who is truly and thoroughly good. :)

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”‭‭
Mark‬ ‭12‬:‭29‬-‭30‬ ‭[Deut 6:4]
『聞け、イスラエルよ。主は私たちの神。主は唯一である。あなたは心を尽くし、いのちを尽くし、知性を尽くし、力を尽くして、あなたの神、主を愛しなさい。』
マルコの福音書 12:29-30 ‬ ‭[申命記 6:4]