Custom Scroll for Aikido Dojo

This scroll was made for a customer who is enrolled in our scroll referral program. This is a program which allows one to earn a commission on referral sales for scrolls. This Aikidou dojo, located in the Western United States, wanted to provide a retirement gift for one of their Sensei’s.   he had a scroll commissioned.

This Sensei’s nickname was Kissaki, which means point of the sword, which is written prominently on the right hand side. On the left hand side is written, “To renew our Aikidou fighting spirit.” And the translation only uses Characters. The customer was concerned about my use of Fighting spirit, in that Aikidou has a principle to only use the martial art in self-defense. But my use of Toukon was to imply not to give up in the face of adversity or trial, in other words, to fight through the difficult battles of our life, and not meant to go out and start fights.

The calligraphy was written by Ryugyoku, Yoshimi Yamada Maples in the Semi-cursive style called gyousho. The scroll is made with a benberugu cloth which has both silk and cotton. It has a flower karakusa arabesque. The Ichimonji is a gold on orange with a cloud pattern. The Jikusaki is wood, and is a Shitan stain. The hanging string is usukin, or light gold.

Dimensions of the scroll as follows:

Name in Kanji	Name in English	Size in Bun	Size in Inches
天	Ten	87	10.38
上一文字	Ue Ichimonji	10	1.19
紙本の幅さ	Artwork Width	102	12.17
紙本の長さ	Artwork Length	440	52.49
柱	Pillars	22	2.62
下一文字	Shita Ichimonji	6	0.72
地	Chi	50	5.96
掛け軸の幅さ	Scroll Width	146	17.42
掛け軸の長さ	Scroll Length	593	70.74

Saratoga Springs New York Scrollmaking Class

Attached are some pictures from my scrollmaking class in New York. There were 8 students.

Bujinkan Ninjutsu Wallscroll

This kakejiku or wallscroll was commissioned for a practitioner
of Ninjutsu. He wanted a simple style scroll, but was concerned about the quality of the calligraphy. My wife works really hard to try and get all characters evenly spaced and balanced and I think this one was well written in the Gyousho style.

The scroll is in a navy silk, with gold on gold karakusa for the ichimonji. The jikusaki are Ivory plastic in the 9 bun size. I used the larger size because this customer also purchased the fuchin on the bottom, which are ceramic pieces to weight the scroll. Dimensions as follows:

Name in Kanji	Name in English	Size in Bun	Size in Inches
天	Ten	115	13.72
上一文字	Ue Ichimonji	7	0.84
紙本の幅さ	Artwork Width	53	6.32
紙本の長さ	Artwork Length	220	26.24
柱	Pillars	18	2.15
下一文字	Shita Ichimonji	4	0.48
地	Chi	70	8.35
掛け軸の幅さ	Scroll Width	89	10.62
掛け軸の長さ	Scroll Length	416	49.63