The easy part is done

[gurdymonkey]

I went with the grid style game board top for the sugoroku box because the only one I've seen that didn't have it is the Chinese looking board in the Shoso-in collection. However, I LOVE the Shoso-in board's crescent moon motif, so I incorporated it here.

Despite carefully masking off all the lines with tape, there was a little bit of bleeding because the liquid leaf is so fine. I will go back later and clean it up with a little black paint and my really fine brush.


Now I am faced with the blank expanses of box sides.... What to put on them!



POOH! My thinnest brush does not appear to be quite thin enough - you can see where I've sanded and painted out a couple of water lines on here.  It doesn't help that the consistency of the liquid leaf is really liquid AND fast drying at the same time. I had to go back and put a second coat on the cartwheels because of it, though I do draw a mean cartwheel.

Comments

[takadai-no-tora.livejournal.com]

Some kind of nature motif for the sides? Grass blades and little flowers or seed heads? In gold?

[gurdymonkey.livejournal.com]

It's gonna be cartwheels soaking in a stream.

[takadai-no-tora.livejournal.com]

That's a classic motif--is it on an extant sugoroku board/box?

[gurdymonkey.livejournal.com]

I haven't been able to find very many examples of extant boards from period, which is why I've been looking at laquers on a variety of artifacts. What I am seeing on the post-period boards is that the decoration appears to be on the short sides of the box and the long sides are undecorated, and in most cases use woods with pretty grains. Since I'm working in plywood, that's not an option. The plan is to do the short sides with the wheel/water motif. I may or may not do something to the long sides depending on how I like how it looks plain.

And let's not even get started on what the game pieces are supposed to look like. I have found NOTHING.

[takadai-no-tora.livejournal.com]

Damn! Any references to what the6 looked like, either pictorial or literary? Or is it like the kute-uchi hand-straps..."Michiko-sensei brought her own hnnd-straps, which were different from the usual kind," and no frelling clue what the usual kind were.

[gurdymonkey.livejournal.com]

The game pieces are small and round and each side would have a different color - that's about all I can tell from the pictorial evidence, both in Kamakura-period emaki and Edo woodcuts. White and black seem common. There's an Edo period dice shaker in "Asian Games" made out of a small section of bamboo and lacquered in black and gold. I've found of people playing sugoroku.

So yeah, I'm extrapolating like mad.

[takadai-no-tora.livejournal.com]

hmmmmm, if all lse fails, it sounds like Go pieces might work, if they're not too big