Ryu Okimono Construction: Viewing the Making of Original Japanese Art

Yoshida Ranma Workshop

The address of the Yoshida family and their business.

Hakusan, Yamanaka-cho, Enuma-gun
Ishikawa-ken, 922-01 Japan
Tel/Fax: 81 (7617) 8-0940 (Japanese only, please)
Tel/Fax: 81 (776) 64-3118 (English or Japanese)
E-mail The Gallery Manager for details.
(English or Japanese welcome)

In the Kenritsu Bijutsukan we are currently displaying the stunning artwork of the Yoshida family. They take ordinary Japanese paper and turn it into amazing pieces of priceless works of art that can best be viewed by visiting the Yoshida Ranma Gallery.

One visitor was so impressed that he commissioned a dragon to be designed and created for him. If you would like to contact him for his personal opinion, please do so.

Below, you will see the various stages that occurred to create the final product. From start to finish, the entire time involved was approximately two to three months. everything is hand-crafted in amazing detail.

Please feel free to take your time and watch the artist "at work".

If you would like to see more samples of the Yoshida family tradition, please walk over to the Yoshida Ranma Gallery. There is a large variety of different objects that you can view.

After admiring these amazing works of art, if there is something that you might like to purchase or a design of your own that interests you, or if you would like to ask any questions at all, please contact the gallery managers by writing to info @ japanippon (dot) com for details.

Keep in mind that everything you see is hand made and cannot be duplicated identically. This means that if you were to request a commission, there would be no other object exactly like yours in the entire world.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The Gallery Manager

Okimono

Step 1:

Find a reasonably rotten piece of tree root that has a lot of character (driftwood is particularly good for this).

The soft, rotten wood is scraped away so only the hard core is left.

It is then burned, the rough spots polished and the broken tips smoothed out.

Step 2:

Using wire, the rough design for the dragon is created .

It is important to make this design in harmony with the "flow" of the wood so as to seem as natural as possible.

Step 3:

The frame then bent into its final positioning and wrapped with Japanese paper that has been saturated in paste to form the basic dragon shape.

Step 4:

The tail and fins are attached, one by one.

Each individual scale is 10 layers of Japanese paper that have been glued together, then hand-cut and pasted to the body.

Step 5:

The rough form of the head, legs, claws are attached to the main part of the body.

Once the rough shape is created, the finer detail (whiskers, tongue, horns, teeth, etc.) are added.

Step 6:

At this point, the paper is still very soft and pliable.

In order to make it firm, approximately five to six layers of undercoat are hand-painted on the dragon.

Final details are carved into the face, claws, etc.

Step 7:

The dragon is then covered with two layers of color-based coating.

After this has dried, a layer of lacquer is brushed over the entire surface.

When the lacquer has dried, it is hand-polished with cloth.

This procedure, repeated five to six times will eventually bring out the natural grain in the paper and give it a realistic texture.

	Step 1: Find a reasonably rotten piece of tree root that has a lot of character (driftwood is particularly good for this). The soft, rotten wood is scraped away so only the hard core is left. It is then burned, the rough spots polished and the broken tips smoothed out.
	Step 2: Using wire, the rough design for the dragon is created . It is important to make this design in harmony with the "flow" of the wood so as to seem as natural as possible.
	Step 3: The frame then bent into its final positioning and wrapped with Japanese paper that has been saturated in paste to form the basic dragon shape.
	Step 4: The tail and fins are attached, one by one. Each individual scale is 10 layers of Japanese paper that have been glued together, then hand-cut and pasted to the body.
	Step 5: The rough form of the head, legs, claws are attached to the main part of the body. Once the rough shape is created, the finer detail (whiskers, tongue, horns, teeth, etc.) are added.
	Step 6: At this point, the paper is still very soft and pliable. In order to make it firm, approximately five to six layers of undercoat are hand-painted on the dragon. Final details are carved into the face, claws, etc.
	Step 7: The dragon is then covered with two layers of color-based coating. After this has dried, a layer of lacquer is brushed over the entire surface. When the lacquer has dried, it is hand-polished with cloth. This procedure, repeated five to six times will eventually bring out the natural grain in the paper and give it a realistic texture.