Kakejiku of Kappa

***This is not an Akutagawa Painting. It is based upon the painting of the Kappa by Akutagawa. It was painted with calligraphy done by Horinouchi, Natsuko. A sumie and shodo artist located in Germany. This was ordered as a gift for someone back east.

You can read about the legend of the Kappa at this link to Wikipedia.
Although it says in this article, that it is specific to Saga Prefecture, it was a constant and recurring image, along with the Game, in the town of Yatsushiro in Kumamoto prefecture where I lived for 7 months in 1994.

I really enjoyed making this scroll. It was a challenge due to the size, but also the theme. I chose the Ichimonji to represent the flowing water in which it lived, and the green/yellow silk to represent the grassy/mossy banks that surround some of the rivers that I saw in the countryside. The kakehimo, is hard to see, but it is a light green, (Kinka) to complement the green cloth. The dark Ebony (kokutan) jikusaki really match well with the Earthtones of brown, and tan in the Fuchin. I used the Brown hanging string to blend invisibly onto the jikusaki.

Scroll Dimensions as follows:

Name in Kanji	Name in English	Size in Bun	Size in Inches
天	Ten	114	13.60
上一文字	Ue Ichimonji	15	1.79
紙本の幅さ	Artwork Width	158	18.85
紙本の長さ	Artwork Length	290	34.59
柱	Pillars	9	1.07
下一文字	Shita Ichimonji	12	1.43
地	Chi	75	8.95
掛け軸の幅さ	Scroll Width	176	21.00
掛け軸の長さ	Scroll Length	506	60.36