Kendo Watercolor Silhouette Series

With all the stress and anxiety I've been feeling recently, kendo has been one of my effective stress-relievers. With all the shouting during kendo training, I cannot imagine how it won't relieve anyone from stress.

One day, I just felt like channeling my feelings towards kendo into art. Thing is, I can't draw realistic illustrations. Instead, I had an idea of painting colored silhouettes. At least, I know I can draw outlines.

First painting: Hitting 'men' (面). I was pretty bummed after training the night before I painted this because I couldn't hit properly. My shinai kept going to the right (because I use my right arm too much when I should only be using my left) and my fumikomi (the act of lunging or jumping in to reach the opponent) wasn't good either. I made this painting whilst telling myself that I will train hard and that I will not let myself down.

Second painting: Sonkyo. After the first painting, I decided to turn the thing into a series. The second ended up to be sonkyo (the squatting position taken before and after a match to show respect to one's opponent). I made this right before I left the house to go to the 2nd Metro Manila Kendo Friendship Cup. It was cool seeing my seniors compete in a tournament!

Third painting: Hidari jodan no kamae. Now this one looks a bit different from the first two because I used a different watercolor paper (Apparently, Canson is better than Mizuchi for wet-on-wet paintings.) and I also added some texture using salt. Yup, salt!

Now that's the first three. I'm looking at making between four to six for this series. First I'll have to think about the poses I want to paint haha.