Having recently returned from a terrific journey to Japan, it seems a perfect time to share insights into my three samurai paintings. Using our trusty Rail Passes, we left the mega-metropolises of Japan behind and headed for the smaller cities where many historical sites from the time of the samurais still exist, such as the authentic Himeji Castle,
and an ancient mountain temple complex made famous as a setting for The Last Samurai movie with Tom Cruise.
Samurai
My original Samurai emerged from one of my imaginary creature ink drawings. With the addition of acrylic paint, he took on a more colorful, spirited essence. In this first painting of the series, the sprinting samurai creates airwaves that swirl around him in the background.
I liked my Samurai so much that I decided to create additional paintings setting him into traditional Japanese scenes.
Rising Sun Samurai
The second painting in this series is Rising Sun Samurai. The rising sun of Japan set against an orange sky above lush green hills dominates the top portion of this painting.
The center portion is highlighted by the samurai and his shadow running along a path toward the distant hills.
The contextural patterns making up the grass along the path are covered with yellow and blue dots representing wild flowers.
Along the path and in the distant hills are a series of Japanese symbols. The original symbols can be identified, as they are painted with dark brown backgrounds covered with lighter brown dots upon dots. Additional colors and images have been added to help disguise them and turn them into part of the landscape.
The first two symbols are shown below. The symbol on the left has been turned into a small building by the addition of a brown roof (with darker brown dots) and yellow walls with gold accents.
The second symbol has become a Japanese lantern with birds flying on its gold background and a purple shield displaying the three comma-like shapes of the mitsutomoe that is seen all over Japan.
These two symbols can be found in the lower left portion of the painting.
The next four symbols are in the distance on top of the hills with their shadows falling down below them. The two lower symbols have been turned into pavilions with the addition of roofs. The two upper symbols have been left untouched since they look like majestic sculptures against the sun.
The final three symbols are in the lower right portion of the painting. The first symbol becomes a bush when leaves are added. The second symbol is seen as another small building with its own brown roof and yellow walls. The final symbol transforms into a woman in lavender and gold at a garden trellis.
When all nine symbols are read from the lower left up to the top of the hills and then back down to the bottom right, they spell out 'Respected Ancient Samurai Hero' in Japanese.
The complete Rising Sun Samurai is shown below.
Seaside Samurai
In the third painting of the series, the samurai is running along the seaside as seen in the bottom portion of the painting detailed below.
The sea is crashing against ragged rocks, seen both above and below. The rocks are painted using intricate patterns as seen in my other contextural paintings. However, the sea is painted using dots free-floating on the darker blue background, portraying their greater fluidity.
In the center portion of the painting, fog is floating along the ground. The fog was created by painting lace-like patterns of white over the background of grass and mountains.
In the top of the painting, large fir trees and looming mountains (each painted with intricate patterns) are seen in the distance against orange-hued clouds at sunset.
The complete Seaside Samurai pays tribute to traditional Japanese paintings.
Our recent travels rekindled my appreciation of the magnificent natural beauty of Japan, and reminded me of why I so much enjoyed the great effort that went into creating these three paintings. I'm pleased to be able to share them with you.
I'm now starting to work on a slideshow detailing the creation of Seaside Samurai. I will post a link to this slideshow when it's finished.